The function of differentially expressed miRNAs was annotated using DIANA TOOLS - mirPath v.3 [37]. The Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of molecular functions (MF), biological processes (BP), and cellular components (CC) overrepresented in differentially expressed mRNAs was conducted using DAVID v6.8 [38]. In addition, AUD-associated miRNA–mRNA pairs and their associated canonical pathways in each brain region were analyzed using the miRNA Target Filter function in Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA, Ingenuity Systems, http://www.ingenuity.com). First, the differential expression analysis results [including fold changes (FC) and P values] of differentially expressed miRNAs (absolute FC ≥ 1.3 and P < 0.05) identified in each brain region were uploaded as the input miRNA dataset for the IPA miRNA Target Filter function, and miRNA–mRNA pairs were then revealed using predicted miRNA–mRNA interactions from TargetScan [39], TarBase [40], and miRecords [41] as well as microRNA-related findings from peer-reviewed literature. Second, the differential expression analysis results (including FC and P values) of differentially expressed mRNAs (absolute FC ≥ 1.3 and P < 0.05) identified in the same brain region were added, and the Expression Pairing function of the
