oftentimes if there is a difference in this sort of situation, it's preferring to bind to a specific subtype of receptor (GABAa is made of 5 different subunits

oftentimes if there is a difference in this sort of situation, it's preferring to bind to a specific subtype of receptor (GABAa is made of 5 different subunits which can be alpha, beta, gamma (or one of 16 other proteibs). the combo of which units are expressed determines the subtype). usually, receptor subtypes are expressed differently throughout the brain. this is (probably) why benzos and z-drugs have qualitative differences for example--they act on different neurons as they have varying affinities to GABAa subtypes