GABAergic afferent inputs are thought to play an important role in the control of the firing pattern of substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) dopaminergic neurons. We report here the actions of presynaptic kainite (KA) receptors in GABAergic transmission of rat SNc dopaminergic neurons. In mechanically dissociated rat SNc dopaminergic neurons attached with native presynaptic nerve terminals, GAB...

Abnormalities of GABAergic interneurons are some of the most consistent findings from post-mortem studies of schizophrenia. However, linking these molecular deficits with in vivo observations in patients - a critical goal in order to evaluate interventions that would target GABAergic deficits - presents a challenge. Explanatory models have been developed based on animal work and the emerging ex...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive neurophysiological tool that enables the investigation of cortical excitability in human brain. Paired-pulse TMS paradigms include short- and long-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI/LICI), facilitation (ICF), short-latency afferent (SAI), which can assess functions GABAergic, glutamatergic, cholinergic neural circuits, respectively....

20 In immature neurons activation of ionotropic GABA receptors induces depolarizing 21 membrane responses due to a high intracellular Cl-concentration ([Cl-] i). However, it 22 is difficult to draw conclusions about the functional consequences of subthreshold 23 GABAergic depolarizations, since GABAergic membrane shunting and additional 24 effects on voltage-dependent ion channels or action pot...

GABAergic dysfunction has been strongly implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. In this study, we analyzed the expression levels of several GABAergic genes in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of postmortem subjects with schizophrenia (n=21) and a comparison group of individuals without a history of psychiatric illness (n=18). Our analyses revealed a significant sex by diagnosis e...

In the cortex inhibition is mediated predominantly by GABAergic interneurons. Although all of these neurons use the same neurotransmitter, studies in the rat frontal cortex have shown that they are molecularly and physiologically diverse. It is not known whether similar subgroups of GABAergic neurons exist in primary visual cortex and how these different inhibitory neurons are inserted into spe...

GABAergic neuronal cell grafting has promise for treating a multitude of neurological disorders including epilepsy, age-related memory dysfunction, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. However, identification of an unlimited source of GABAergic cells is critical for advancing such therapies. Our previous study implied that reprogramming of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) th...

Neurons dissociated from embryonic cerebral rat cortex form a differentiated network of synaptic connections and develop synchronous oscillatory network activity with the beginning of the second week in culture. During an initial phase lasting 3-4 d, synchronous calcium transients can be blocked completely by either CNQX or bicuculline, showing that both glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons are ...

Recent in vitro experiments revealed that the GABA A reversal potential is about 10 mV higher than the resting potential in mature mammalian neocortical pyramidal cells, thus GABAergic inputs could have facilitatory, rather than inhibitory, effects on action potential generation under certain conditions. However, how the relationship between excitatory input conductances and the output firing r...

Acetylcholine from the basal forebrain and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) from intracortical inhibitory interneurons exert strong influence on the cortical activity and may interact with each other. Cholinergic or muscarinic agonists indeed induced GABAergic postsynaptic currents in pyramidal cells by exciting inhibitory interneurons that have recently been classified into several distinct subt...