N-Methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR) exacerbated activation leads to neuron death through a phenomenon called excitotoxicity. These receptors are implicated in several neurological diseases (e.g., Alzheimer and Parkinson) and thus represent an important therapeutic target. We herein describe the study of enantiopure tryptophanol-derived oxazolopiperidone lactams as NMDA receptor antagonists. The most active hit exhibited an IC50 of 63.4 mu M in cultured rat cerebellar granule neurons thus being 1.5 fold more active than clinically approved NMDA antagonist amantadine (IC50 = 92 mu M). (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.