[floam]

I believe gabapentin was once believed to be a positive allosteric modulator (PAM) on certain GABA, and now they don’t even believe that to be the case but it somehow affects GABA expression and activity indirectly. (It’s definitely not a GABA agonist.)

It is also not very potent but there is another drug that shares its mechanism that is potent in single digit mg amounts: pregabalin (Lyrica). It is potent and kinda sorta abusable (not really) and they both can produce a super mild but benzo-ish sedation for a couple hours for a day or two.

It is apparently a coincidence that the drug seemed to resemble GABA and got its name though. Strange.