GABA signaling in health and disease

Download or read book GABA signaling in health and disease written by Yehezkel Ben-Ari and published by Frontiers E-books. This book was released on with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GABAergic neurons provide most of the inhibitory drive of adult networks and play major roles in the integrative properties of brain networks. Alterations of GABAergic signals are associated with major neurological disorders and GABA mimetic drugs are widely used as comfort molecules and to treat several brain disorders. Thus, the inhibitory drive is altered in epilepsies, infantile developmentally related disorders but also Parkinson disease, and anoxo-ischemic insults to just name a few. From the developmental stand point, GABAergic neurons mature before principal neurons and provide an important source of early activities and are thus instrumental in activity dependent modulation of the construction of cortical functional units. The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together experts studying GABA signals at the molecular, cellular and network levels in physiological and pathological conditions and to examine the fate of GABA signals along transversal ideas linking these diverse domains. A particular emphasis is brain maturation as it is now clear that alteration of developmental sequences -notably of GABA signals- impairs brain development leading to life long deleterious neurological sequels. While this Frontiers Research Topic originated as a repository of work presented at CNCR Amsterdam, papers are invited from researchers continuing to work on this topic as the field expands.