Plasticity of GABA _A R in light versus dark is sleep- and microglia-dependent. (a) Experimental groups: mice in dark phase (ZT18), mice in light phase (ZT6), and mice submitted to sleep deprivation (dashed) in the light phase (SD6). Vertical bars: time of perfusion. (b) Representative images showing enrichment of GABA_ARγ2 (cyan) at cortical L1 inhibitory synapses in the light phase (ZT6). Arrowheads: GABA_ARγ2 clusters at gephyrin⁺VGAT⁺ synapses in control (CTL) or PLX3397-treated mice (PLX). Scale bars, 5 and 1 μm. The dashed box corresponds to CTL at ZT18. (c and d) Mean intensity of GABA_ARγ2 clusters at gephyrin⁺VGAT⁺ synapses (synaptic) and at extrasynaptic sites normalized to ZT18. n = 48–65 fields of view (FOVs) from 4 to 5 mice per group. *P < 0.05, nested two-tailed t test; **P < 0.01 compared with ZT18 and ^##P < 0.01 compared with SD6, nested one-way ANOVA followed by Sidak’s multiple comparison test. (e) Left: Representative confocal images of VGAT and GABA_ARγ2 in cortical L5. Yellow line delineates soma identified by NeuN staining. Scale bar, 5 μm. Right: Mean intensity of GABA_ARγ2 at somatic VGAT⁺ clusters in L5 normalized to ZT18. n = 60 FOVs from five mice per group. No statistical significance by nested two-tailed t test. (c–e) Results are presented as minimum to maximum box plots.