Noncoding RNAs: Novel Insights into Postoperative Neurocognitive Disorders.

Postoperative recovery for patients (particularly elderly) will be commonly encountered for postoperative neurocognitive disorders. Although effort has been undertaken to better understand and prevent these disorders, little improvement has been observed, due to largely unknown mechanisms. Emerging evidence indicates that noncoding RNAs including microRNA(s), long noncoding RNA(s), and circular RNA(s) are promising biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and novel pathways to reveal mechanisms of postoperative neurocognitive disorders. However, there has been little crosstalk between noncoding RNA biology and development of postoperative neurocognitive disorders. We discuss the major noncoding RNAs in mechanisms, diagnosis, risk-stratification, prognosis, and treatment in postoperative neurocognitive disorders in a novel approach.