Carta and colleagues [9] assessed the effect of acute ethanol application on GABAergic transmission at Golgi interneuron synapses onto cerebellar granule cells. These authors found that 10 and 20mM ethanol significantly increased sIPSC frequency in granule cells. Additionally, 20mM ethanol increased the tonic current noise variance in these cells. There was no effect of ethanol on evoked IPSCs or glutamatergic transmission at mossy fiber/granule cell synapses. The extrasynaptic GABAA receptors expressed in cerebellar granule cells have also been implicated in the sensitivity of these cells to low dose ethanol [10]. Hanchar and colleagues found that low ethanol concentrations (3 and 10mM) enhance the tonic GABA current. These authors also reported that a naturally occurring single-nucleotide polymorphism in the gene encoding these receptors further enhances ethanol sensitivity of these extrasynaptic GABAA receptors, but this effect has not been replicated by other investigators [11]. Cerebellar slices have also been used to assess the effect of ethanol on the excitability of Purkinje cells which are innervated by cerebellar climbing fibers to evoke complex spikes [12]. At a low dose, ethanol (10mM) has been
