You can find the video of the review on our YouTube channel at this link.
Review of the article from Kaster et al. (2015) titled “Clozapine potentiation of GABA mediated cortical inhibition in treatment resistant schizophrenia” in which the main objective was to measure transcranial magnetic stimulation indices of cortical inhibition over the motor cortex in patients with schizophrenia before and after starting clozapine treatment. Specifically, the assessment of cortical inhibition was made through two different transcranial magnetic stimulation protocols, namely short interval cortical inhibition (SICI) to assess GABAa mediated inhibition and Cortical silent period (CSP) to assess GABAb mediated inhibition.
Results highlight that clozapine treatment in patients with schizophrenia potentiates GABAb mediated cortical inhibition as early as 6 weeks, as shows the increase in CSP. The results also suggest that there may be decreased SICI with long-term clozapine treatment. Finally, this study strengthens the hypothesis that the GABAb receptor may be a novel neurotransmitter target for schizophrenia.