Fluctuations in the GABA neurotransmitter?

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I'm not a neuropsychologist or any kind of medical professional but I am interested in psychology and therefore pharmacology a bit too. I have been wondering about a possible cause of a weird kind of fatigue I experience sometimes. GABA, by the way is a neurotransmitter in the brain that regulates (read: decreases) the amount of activity going on in the brain. So the more there is, the less synapses fire. The less there is, the more anxiety.

First off I gathered that I have too low GABA levels because of various reasons. Apart from anxiety and always needing to be thinking, learning, planning etc, I react weirdly to psychoactives. Caffiene, for example makes me sleepy. Alcohol makes me normal and everything just flows smoothly as it used to (whenever that was, I just think "ahh, it's good to be me again"). That was the main giveaway. Theanine (which increases GABA) also helped to a lesser degree but for longer as I expected and without the negative side effects of alcohol.

The thing is that periodically, I begin to think and research more feverishly about whatever I'm obsessed with at the time. The inner mad scientist wakes up and for about a week it's like I'm on speed and I'm drawing up scheems and designs for crazy, devious ideas late into the night. Then the brainstorming turns into agitation and anger for about a day and it all gives way to mental exhaustion. This is the fatigue part. I'm not sure how long this psycle is or if there's even a normal baseline to settle to.

I know this sounds a bit like bi-polar disorder (manic depression) but I assure you depression isn't part of the psycle and the "up" isn't exactly mania. That's why I suspect it could be a similar thing but with GABA instead of seratonin.

Actually right now the agitation part has just subsided leaving me feeling spaced out and surreal. I posted this here because it's more out of interest than for help. Does anyone experience something similar or have any thoughts on this? Anyone with more knowledge in the field have any ideas or comments?

This summer I studied some Psychology and am currently taking Psychology 101 and am aware of the function GABA provides, that of a depressant or sedative. Actually, Alcohol and other depressant drugs increase the effectiveness of GABA at slowing neuronal transmission. Therefore they cannot be causing your "wierd kind of fatigue" by decreasing your levels of the GABA neurotransmitter.

Bipolar disorder and manic depression aren't the same thing. Attention deficit disorder, which is commonly comborbid with autism, is something you might look into. Depressant drugs might mitigate its symptoms temporarily. Over time, of course, the drug use could exacerbate your symptoms so that you feel low anytime you don't have the drug, and are addicted.

My concern is that you feel that the "you with alcohol" is your idea of normal ("It's good to be me again").

Yeah, that's why they were a giveaway. What I meaned was that alcohol decreases the buzzing thoughts rather than making it worse. That's why I decided to test to see if theanine helped at all. When it did I decided GABA definitley played a role in this.



Good point, it is concerning. Though the impared motor function, slowed reaction time and liver injury definitley isn't my idea of normal. So I'm aware alcohol isn't the solution. What I meaned was that the calmness and smoothe thoughts (for lack of a better description) reminded me of myself a long time ago. It's the "me with a little more GABA" that I would considder normal, rather than me on alcohol.

Thanks for the ADD idea. I'll look into it.

I haven't heard much about GABA problems, just a little about a GABA defficiency. All of the reasearch into this neurotransmitter seems to be based around developing profitable sedatives. I'm interested by the idea that it's levels could fluctuate, even if that's not what's happening here.

Well, benzodiazepines (drugs like Valium, Xanax, Klonopin, etc) are GABA agonists, and so is alcohol. You could go to a doctor and get a prescription for a benzodiazepine.

I personally just started taking Ativan (lorazepam), which is a benzo, for anxiety. I find it works really well...much better than alcohol.

Other than that, the only other GABA agonists are really bad stuff like barbituates.


EDIT FOR MORE INFO: Some of the benzos have strong sedative effects, and alcohol-like effects, but others are better for anxiety with less sedative or alcohol-like effects. The Ativan that I take is low on sedation but good for just stopping your brain from going all spastic.