Chunk #20 — Acute effects of ethanol on GABAA receptors — Direct effects on GABAA receptor subtypes — High dose effects of ethanol (>30 mM) on tonic inhibition
that the intracellular milieu of different preparations, including second messengers, kinases and phosphatases, may contribute to ethanol actions. Indeed, recent work by Choi et al. (2008) using knockout mice and stably transfected cells has shown that PKCδ activity may be required for ethanol enhancement of extrasynaptic GABAA receptor responses and this requirement may explain the lack of consistent effects in prior studies. Irrespective of the low ethanol dose discrepancy, it is clear that ethanol does enhance tonic inhibition, and that low dose actions of ethanol may have multiple mechanisms. Further studies are needed to clarify these discrepancies.
