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  • Colombi, Ilaria; Rastogi, Mohit; Parrini, Martina; Alberti, Micol; Potenzieri, Alberto; Chellali, Mariam Marie; Rosati, Silvia; Chiappalone, Michela; Nanni, Marina; Contestabile, Andrea; Cancedda, Laura

    iScience, 2024-Apr-19, Volume: 27, Issue: 4
    Journal Article

    Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in adults. Depolarizing GABA responses have been well characterized at neuronal-population level during typical neurodevelopment and partially in brain disorders. However, no investigation has specifically assessed whether a of cells with either depolarizing or hyperpolarizing/inhibitory GABAergic responses exists in animals in health/disease at diverse developmental stages, including adulthood. Here, we showed that such mosaicism is present in wild-type (WT) and down syndrome (DS) neuronal networks, as assessed at increasing scales of complexity (cultures, brain slices, behaving mice). Nevertheless, WT mice presented a much lower percentage of cells with depolarizing GABA than DS mice. Restoring the mosaicism of hyperpolarizing and depolarizing GABA-responding neurons to WT levels rescued anxiety behavior in DS mice. Moreover, we found heterogeneous GABAergic responses in developed control and trisomic human induced-pluripotent-stem-cells-derived neurons. Thus, a heterogeneous subpopulation of GABA-responding cells exists in physiological/pathological conditions in mouse and human neurons, possibly contributing to disease-associated behaviors.