Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 15|pp 15314—15327

Anabolic-androgenic steroids and brain injury: miRNA evaluation in users compared to cocaine abusers and elderly people

Francesco Sessa¹, Monica Salerno², Luigi Cipolloni¹, Giuseppe Bertozzi¹, Giovanni Messina¹, Giulio Di Mizio³, Alessio Asmundo⁴, Cristoforo Pomara²

¹Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Foggia, Foggia 71122, Italy
²Department of Medical, Surgical and Advanced Technologies “G.F. Ingrassia”, University of Catania, Catania 95121, Italy
³Department of Legal, Historical, Economic and Social Sciences, University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro 88100, Italy
⁴Department of Biomedical and Dental Sciences, and of Morphological and Functional Images, Section of Legal Medicine, University of Messina, Messina 98121, Italy

Received: March 17, 2020Accepted: June 4, 2020Published: August 3, 2020

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103512

Copyright © 2020 Sessa et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs) can be used to treat both hormonal diseases and other pathologies characterized by muscle loss (aging, cancer, and AIDS). Even if the adverse effects related to the misuse of AASs have been well studied in different systems and apparatuses, knowledge about brain damage is poor.

In this scenario, this experimental study aimed to analyze the role of several microRNAs (miRNAs) in brain damage after AAS misuse, to better comprehend the underlying mechanisms. The research hypothesis at the base of this experimental study is that the chronic use of AASs may be associated to brain damage with a dysregulation of these miRNAs. Moreover, miRNA expression values were compared among three different groups, “AAS” group, “Cocaine” group and “Aging” group, in order to define if AAS brain damage can be compared with the brain impairment linked to aging and/or cocaine assumption.

This experimental study revealed that the tested miRNAs (hsa-miR-21-5p, hsa-miR-34a-5p, hsa-miR-124-5p, hsa-miR-132-3p, and hsa-miR-144-3p) were overexpressed in all enrolled groups. In the light of the presented results, the identification of specific circulating and/or tissue biomarkers is challenging for the scientific community. Further studies with larger samples are needed to confirm these interesting findings.