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miRNAs As Critical Epigenetic Players in Determining Neurobiological Correlates of Major Depressive Disorder

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Understanding Depression

Abstract

Failure in eliciting proper adaptive response toward chronic stress stimuli often results in developing serious mental disabilities like major depressive disorder (MDD). Risk factors associated with adverse environmental condition are mostly found to be influential in pattering the neuromolecular architecture and functional output of depressed brain. Improper functioning of plasticity-related genes and stress-associated factors are often considered the terminal effect of this environmental modulation, causing an overall dysfunction in neuronal information processing pathway. Emerging concept of epigenetic perturbation has successfully established the role of microRNA (miRNA) in shaping the genetic information processing in disrupted neuromolecular circuitry of depressed brain. This has found to be persuasive in creating a strong epigenetic interface between environmental stimuli and underlying reversible changes in gene expression. Hence, the current chapter is primarily oriented to enumerate those MDD-related miRNA changes accountable for causing dysregulated downstream gene expression with etiopathogenic effects and their possible amelioration.

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Acknowledgment

The research was supported by grants from National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH082802; 1R01MH101890; R01MH100616; 1R01MH107183-01) and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (SRG-1-042-14) to Dr. Dwivedi.

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  1. UAB Mood Disorder Program, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Bhaskar Roy & Yogesh Dwivedi

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  1. Bhaskar Roy
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  2. Yogesh Dwivedi
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Correspondence to Yogesh Dwivedi .

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  1. College of Medicine, Korea University, Kyonggi-do, Korea (Republic of)

    Yong-Ku Kim

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Roy, B., Dwivedi, Y. (2018). miRNAs As Critical Epigenetic Players in Determining Neurobiological Correlates of Major Depressive Disorder. In: Kim, YK. (eds) Understanding Depression . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6580-4_4

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