Excessive, chronic alcohol use can evoke persistent alterations in brain function that result in alcohol dependence [1, 2]. Such alterations involve complex gene networks that span multiple brain regions [3], and there is growing evidence that microRNAs may play an important regulatory role in alcohol’s effects on brain function [4–7]. MicroRNAs are short, non-coding RNAs that utilize sequence complementarity to bind RNA transcripts, thus modifying their expression [8]. A single microRNA can simultaneously alter expression of numerous genes, while multiple microRNAs can act coordinately to precisely control the expression of a single gene [7, 9].
