Compared with alcoholics, cocaine addicts showed significantly increased expression of GABRB1 but significantly lower expression of GABARAP that encodes the protein GABARAP. Some [52] but not all [53] studies have shown that GABARAP anchors GABAA receptors to the postsynaptic cytoskeleton via high affinity binding to the gamma2 subunit and interactions with gephyrin and NSF. Certainly in cocaine addicts the GABARAP findings are congruent with those of GPHN and NSF but the relevance of the findings in alcoholics is not clear.
