The abundance and physiological importance of GABAA receptors in the central nervous system make this neurotransmitter receptor an attractive target for localizing diagnostic and therapeutic biomolecules. GABAA receptors are expressed within the retina and mediate synaptic signaling at multiple stages of the visual process. To generate monoclonal affinity reagents that can specifically recogniz...

Background In Pavlovian fear conditioning, in which initially a conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly paired with an aversive stimulus (US), animals learn to associate CS with US, hence attaching emotional significance to sensory stimuli. Conditioned fear can be suppressed when the CS is repeatedly presented alone, a phenomenon known as fear extinction. Previous studies suggest that the mecha...

Interactions among suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) neurons are required for robust circadian rhythms entrained to local time. To investigate these signaling mechanisms, we developed a functional coupling assay that uniquely captures the dynamic process by which SCN neurons interact. As a population, SCN neurons typically display synchronized rhythms with similar peak times, but will peak 6-12 hr ...

BACKGROUND The mechanisms underlying the therapeutic actions of gabapentin remain poorly understood. The chemical structure and behavioral properties of gabapentin strongly suggest actions on inhibitory neurotransmission mediated by gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA); however, gabapentin does not directly modulate GABAA or GABAB receptors. Two distinct forms of GABAergic inhibition occur in the bra...

Introduction: Ginger has shown anti-nociceptive effects. Here we investigated the possible involvement of GABAA receptors in anti-nociceptive effect of ginger using muscimol (GABAA agonist) and picrotoxin (GABAA antagonist) in rats that received ginger. The pain sensitivity was evaluated by formalin test. Methods: Thirty-five male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 7 groups (n=5): s...

the present work was performed to show the possible interaction of gab a, and gabab receptors in catalepsy. the following results were obtained: 1- muscimol (mus), a gabaa agonist, induced catalepsy. this effect was dose-dependent. baclofen (bac), a gabab agonist, had no effect in this respect. 2- catalepsy induced by muscimol was potentiated by pretreatment of animals with bicuculline (bic), a...

In the postnatal subventricular zone (SVZ) local cues or signaling molecules released from neuroblasts limit the proliferation of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-expressing progenitors thought to be stem cells. However, signals between SVZ cells have not been identified. We show that depolarizations of neuroblasts induce nonsynaptic SNARE-independent GABAA receptor currents in GFAP-expre...

In a previous report, we demonstrated that ginsenoside Rc, one of major ginsenosides from Panax ginseng, enhances γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptorA (GABAA)-mediated ion channel currents. However, little is known about the effects of ginsenoside metabolites on GABAA receptor channel activity. The present study investigated the effects of ginsenoside metabolites on human recombinant GABAA rece...

Modulation of receptor trafficking is critical for controlling neurotransmission. A γ2(R43Q) point mutation on GABAA receptor subunit is linked to epilepsy in human. We recently analyzed the effect of this amino-acid substitution on GABAA receptor trafficking and showed that this mutation as well as agonist application, both affecting GABAA receptor extracellular domain, have an effect on recep...

Imidazo[1,5-a][1,4]benzodiazepines are well documented to exhibit potent activity at GABAA/Bz receptors. This series belongs to one of the very few chemical families, which have been extensively investigated for GABAA/Bz receptor mediated activity.1,2 Flumazenil (Ro 15-1788), an imidazo[1,5-a][1,4]benzodiazepine, was earlier shown to bind to central GABAA receptors with little or no intrinsic a...