Forensic Context

A study in human postmortem prefrontal cortex demonstrated that the miR-137-3p was significantly decreased (0.744 of control, p=0.0113) in depressed suicide subjects compared to non-psychiatric controls [Smalheiser et al. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0033201]. In traumatic brain injury research, the miR-137-3p is elevated in serum and identified as an exosomal biomarker (ExomiR-137-3p) upregulated in the serum of TBI patients [Li et al. DOI:10.1016/j.neuint.2023.105643]. A study in rats demonstrated that the miR-137-3p is upregulated in the infralimbic prefrontal cortex after 4-week abstinence from escalated cocaine intake compared to 18-hour withdrawal, and its expression level in the nucleus accumbens was significantly correlated with the progressive ratio index of addiction behavior [Kumaresan et al. DOI:10.3390/Biomedicines11051368].