Increasing hepatocyte membrane potentials by augmenting GABAergic activity inhibits nonmalignant hepatocyte proliferative activity. The objectives of this study were to document 1) potential differences (PDs) of four malignant hepatocyte cell lines, 2) GABAA receptor mRNA expression in the same cell lines, and 3) effects of restoring malignant hepatocyte PDs to levels approximating those of res...

GABAA receptors are the main fast inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors in the mammalian brain, and targets for many clinically important drugs widely used in the treatment of anxiety disorders, insomnia and in anesthesia. Nonetheless, there are significant risks associated with the long-term use of these drugs particularly related to development of tolerance and addiction. Addictive mechanisms...

20 The terminal nerve (TN)-gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons have been 21 suggested to function as a neuromodulatory system that regulates the motivational and 22 arousal state of the animal and have served as a model system for the study of GnRH 23 neuron physiology. To investigate the synaptic control of the TN-GnRH neurons, we 24 analyzed electrophysiologically the effect of GABA...

Domestic Mongolian gerbils, a model of inherited epilepsy, begin having spontaneous seizures at ~1.5 months of age, making it possible to evaluate them during epileptic and pre-epileptic stages. Previous studies have shown that GABA-binding is reduced in the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) of both epileptic and pre-epileptic gerbils compared with controls, suggesting that reduced express...

Certain anesthetics exhibit neurotoxicity in the brains of immature but not mature animals. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the adult brain, is excitatory on immature neurons via its action at the GABAA receptor, due to a reversed transmembrane chloride gradient. GABAA receptor activation in immature neurons is sufficient to open L-type voltage-gated c...

Liu, Qiuli, and Margaret T. T. Wong-Riley. Developmental changes in the expression of GABAA receptor subunits 1, 2, and 3 in the rat pre-Bötzinger complex. J Appl Physiol 96: 1825–1831, 2004. First published January 16, 2004; 10.1152/japplphysiol.01264.2003.—Previously, we reported that the pre-Bötzinger complex (PBC) exhibited a dramatic reduction in cytochrome oxidase activity at postnatal da...

Alterations of synaptic excitation induced by exposure to gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) receptor antagonists were investigated employing tight-seal whole cell recording from single neurons or pairs of neurons in rat embryonic midbrain culture. Application of GABAA receptor antagonists led to sustained depolarizations followed by synchronous paroxysmal depolarization shifts (PDSs). PDSs indu...

The effect of GABAA receptor activation varies from inhibition to excitation depending on the state of the transmembrane anionic concentration gradient (delta anion). delta anion was genetically altered in cultured dorsal root ganglion neurons via adenoviral vector-mediated expression of ClC-2, a Cl- channel postulated to regulate the Cl- concentration in neurons in which GABAA receptor activat...

Presynaptic inhibition onto axons regulates neuronal output, but how such inhibitory synapses develop and are maintained in vivo remains unclear. Axon terminals of glutamatergic retinal rod bipolar cells (RBCs) receive GABAA and GABAC receptor-mediated synaptic inhibition. We found that perturbing GABAergic or glutamatergic neurotransmission does not prevent GABAergic synaptogenesis onto RBC ax...

Ionotropic glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptors mediate critical excitatory and inhibitory actions in the brain. Cyclothiazide (CTZ) is well known for its effect of enhancing glutamatergic transmission and is widely used as a blocker for alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)-type glutamate receptor desensitization. Here, we report that in addi...