His work with GABA receptors is part of a major National Institutes of Health program project grant that funds the study of the mechanisms by which general anesthetics produce their effects. Steinbach is the grant's principal investigator. You can inhibit the excitatory response or increase the inhibitory response. By activating GABA receptors, you increase inhibition. GABA receptors respond to a great variety of clinically used drugs that act at separate and specific sites.
Some sites react with barbiturates, others with convulsants, and others with anesthetic gases.
Still others react with steroids. The anesthetics either can activate GABA receptors directly or increase the ability of GABA itself to activate its receptors. Steinbach seems to thrive on the challenge of taking the practically incomprehensible and translating it into something useful. That's one of his best qualities, said Charles F. Zorumski, M.D., professor and head of the Department of Psychiatry, professor of neurobiology and co-investigator on the anesthesia program project grant. When we hit roadblocks in the lab, we often need to find new ways to think about things, and when we do, I go to Joe.