Glutamate and GABA receptors in vertebrate glial cells.

Glial cells of the central nervous system express receptors for the main inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters, GABA and glutamate. The glial GABA and glutamate receptors share many properties with the neuronal GABAA and kainate/quisqualate receptors, but are molecularly and, in some aspects, pharmacologically distinct from their neuronal counterparts. The functional role of these receptors is as yet speculative: They have been proposed to control proliferation of astrocytes, serve to balance ion changes at GABAergic synapses, or they could enable the glial cell to detect neuronal synaptic activity.