2025/01/01 by Dilja Krueger‐Burg · 1 voice
Neuroscience · #Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research #Neuroscience and Neural Engineering #Neural dynamics and brain function
paper · doi:10.1016/j.tins.2024.11.007
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Despite the substantial contribution of disruptions in GABAergic inhibitory neurotransmission to the etiology of psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, and neurodegenerative disorders, surprisingly few drugs targeting the GABAergic system are currently available, partly due to insufficient understanding of circuit-specific GABAergic synapse biology. In addition to GABA receptors, GABAergic synapses contain an elaborate organizational protein machinery that regulates the properties of synaptic transmission. Until recently, this machinery remained largely unexplored, but key methodological advances have now led to the identification of a wealth of new GABAergic organizer proteins. Notably, many of these proteins appear to function only at specific subsets of GABAergic synapses, creating a diversity of organizer complexes that may serve as circuit-specific targets for pharmacotherapies. The present review aims to summarize the methodological developments that underlie this newfound knowledge and provide a current overview of synapse-specific GABAergic organizer complexes, as well as outlining future avenues and challenges in translating this knowledge into clinical applications.