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Early Career Investigator Commentary| Volume 81, ISSUE 12, e87-e89, June 15, 2017

Toward Micro-Switching Exposure Therapy: Potential Relevance for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

  • Michael M. Tsoory
    Correspondence
    Address correspondence to Michael Tsoory, Ph.D., Weizmann Institute of Science, Department of Veterinary Resources, 234 Herzl Street, PO Box 26, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
    Affiliations
    Behavioral and Physiological Phenotyping Unit, Department of Veterinary Resources, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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      Evidence accumulated over the past decade suggests microRNAs (miRNAs) as novel targets for the action of psychiatric drugs. These small regulatory noncoding RNAs contribute to fine-tuning regulation of gene expression by messenger RNA destabilization and/or translational repression; their abundance in the nervous system, their temporally and spatially regulated expression, and their ability to respond in an activity-dependent manner was suggested to make them ideal candidates for regulating complex neuronal processes, including plasticity and memory formation (
      • Issler O.
      • Chen A.
      Determining the role of microRNAs in psychiatric disorders.
      ). In this issue of Biological Psychiatry, Murphy et al. (
      • Murphy C.P.
      • Li X.
      • Maurer V.
      • Oberhauser M.
      • Gstir R.
      • Wearick-Silva L.E.
      • et al.
      MicroRNA-mediated rescue of fear extinction memory by miR-144-3p in extinction-impaired mice.
      ) report a novel potential miRNA-based “micro-switch” of a site- and task-specific learning mechanism—namely the pivotal role miR-144-3p expression in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) has in mechanisms of extinguishing conditioned fear.
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