Caroline Rae1, Fatima Nasrallah1, Julian Griffin2, Vladimir J. Balcar3
1POWMRI, University of New South Wales, Randwick, NSW, Australia; 2The University of Cambridge, UK; 3University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
Here we report a novel method for assessing GABAergic activity by the generation of a metabolomic footprint against which the activity of ligands active in the GABA system can be compared. This approach uses a Guinea pig cortical slice model system, targeted neuropharmacology and 1H/13C NMR spectroscopy to generate a database of more than 150 functional metabolomic fingerprints, each unique to each concentration of ligand. This footprint can be used to infer actions of drugs as well as to determine how individual variables relate to GABAergic activity.