Journal of Alcoholism & Drug Dependence
Open Access

Mickael Naassila

Biography

Professor Mickael Naassila received his PhD in Neurosciences at the University of Rouen studying the mechanisms of action of acamprosate and the role of nitric oxide synthase in alcohol dependence in rats. During his postdoctoral training at the Pharmacology & toxicology dept of the Pharmacy school at the University of Kansas, he studied the transcriptional and post-transductional effects of alcohol on NMDA receptor subunits. Since coming at the University of Picardie Jules Verne in 2000, he has been working on the effect of early life ethanol exposure (in utero and/or adolescence) on the vulnerability to develop alcohol dependence. He was also involved in different clinical projects on the genetic vulnerability to develop a severe phenotype of alcohol dependence and alcohol liver disease. He is the leader of a European project on the cognitive and emotional impact of binge drinking in young people and on the use of preclinical model to mimic this phenomenon in rodents to uncover neurobiological mechanisms underlying long term vulnerability to alcohol abuse. Currently he is the head of the Research Group on Alcohol & Pharmacodependences, one of the very rare laboratories in France seeking to elucidate neurobiological bases of alcohol dependence in pertinent animal models of the disease.

Research Interest

His research interests include cellular & molecular mechanisms of alcohol addiction, genetic and early life alcohol exposure, binge drinking during adolescence and alcohol addiction liability, treatment against excessive alcohol self-administration in dependent rats that have been chronically intoxicated by alcohol vapors and human pharmacogenetic studies.