General Anesthetic Actions on GABAA Receptors

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Abstract

General anesthetic drugs interact with many receptors in the nervous system, but only a handful of these interactions are critical for producing anesthesia. Over the last 20 years, neuropharmacologists have revealed that one of the most important target sites for general anesthetics is the GABA _A receptor. In this review we will discuss what is known about anesthetic – GABA _A receptor interactions.

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Most cited references 72

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Consciousness and anesthesia.

Michael Alkire, Anthony Hudetz, Giulio Tononi (2008)

When we are anesthetized, we expect consciousness to vanish. But does it always? Although anesthesia undoubtedly induces unresponsiveness and amnesia, the extent to which it causes unconsciousness is harder to establish. For instance, certain anesthetics act on areas of the brain's cortex near the midline and abolish behavioral responsiveness, but not necessarily consciousness. Unconsciousness is likely to ensue when a complex of brain regions in the posterior parietal area is inactivated. Consciousness vanishes when anesthetics produce functional disconnection in this posterior complex, interrupting cortical communication and causing a loss of integration; or when they lead to bistable, stereotypic responses, causing a loss of information capacity. Thus, anesthetics seem to cause unconsciousness when they block the brain's ability to integrate information.

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GABA A receptors: subtypes provide diversity of function and pharmacology.

Richard Olsen, Werner Sieghart (2009)

This mini-review attempts to update experimental evidence on the existence of GABA(A) receptor pharmacological subtypes and to produce a list of those native receptors that exist. GABA(A) receptors are chloride channels that mediate inhibitory neurotransmission. They are members of the Cys-loop pentameric ligand-gated ion channel (LGIC) superfamily and share structural and functional homology with other members of that family. They are assembled from a family of 19 homologous subunit gene products and form numerous receptor subtypes with properties that depend upon subunit composition, mostly hetero-oligomeric. These vary in their regulation and developmental expression, and importantly, in brain regional, cellular, and subcellular localization, and thus their role in brain circuits and behaviors. We propose several criteria for including a receptor hetero-oligomeric subtype candidate on a list of native subtypes, and a working GABA(A) receptor list. These criteria can be applied to all the members of the LGIC superfamily. The list is divided into three categories of native receptor subtypes: "Identified", "Existence with High Probability", and "Tentative", and currently includes 26 members, but will undoubtedly grow, with future information. This list was first presented by Olsen & Sieghart (in press).

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Molecular and cellular mechanisms of general anaesthesia.

N Franks, W R Lieb (1994)

General anaesthetics are much more selective than is usually appreciated and may act by binding to only a small number of targets in the central nervous system. At surgical concentrations their principal effects are on ligand-gated (rather than voltage-gated) ion channels, with potentiation of postsynaptic inhibitory channel activity best fitting the pharmacological profile observed in general anaesthesia. Although the role of second messengers remains uncertain, it is now clear that anaesthetics act directly on proteins rather than on lipids.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Curr Neuropharmacol

Journal ID (publisher-id): CN

Title: Current Neuropharmacology

Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.

ISSN (Print): 1570-159X

ISSN (Electronic): 1875-6190

Publication date (Print): March 2010

Volume: 8

Issue: 1

Pages: 2-9

Affiliations

[]Departments of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology, Emory University, School of Medicine, Rollins Research Center #5013, 1510 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta GA, USA

Author notes

[* ]Address correspondence to this author at the Departments of Pharmacology and Anesthesiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Rollins Research Center #5013, 1510 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta GA, 30322-3090, USA; Tel: 404-727-3910; Fax: 404-712-2585; E-mail: ajenki2@ 123456emory.edu

Article

Publisher ID: CN-8-2

DOI: 10.2174/157015910790909502

PMC ID: 2866459

PubMed ID: 20808541

SO-VID: b9de8aff-9a6c-42a9-b7c9-c80d245e5b42

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 17 November 2009

Date revision received : 24 November 2009

Date accepted : 25 November 2009

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