CV Science

Mickael Naassila PhD, Prof of Physiology

Course and current status

2022 PI SMARTBINGE project funded by IReSP/INCa" Smartphone application for university students with binge drinking behavior: a national randomized controlled trial" 

2022 PI of the national network on alcohol research (REUNIRA) funded by IReSP/INCa

2022 PI of the PREFRONTNALC project funded by IReSP/INCa "Preventing binge drinking and alcohol addiction by targeting the imbalance of dopamine D1 and D2 receptors and the dysfunction of the medial prefrontal cortex"

2022 Partner of the ADELY project funded by IReSP/INCa "Treatment of alcohol dependence with lysergic acid diethylamide: translational approach and clinical efficacy study"

2022 Elected President of the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA)

2021 Invited member of the Addiction committee of the National Academy of Medicine

2021 Appointed Scientific Board of the French Observatory of Drugs and drug addictions (OFDT)

2020 - Co-PI GDR 3557 CNRS Psychiatry & Addictions

2019 - Awardee National Academy of Medicine, Prize "lFighting against alcoholism"

2019 - President of the 17th ESBRA congress in Lille

2018 - Director of the INSERM UMRS 1247 unit

2018-2022 Partner of PsiAlc european project funded by the Era-Net Neuron program https://www.psialc.org 

2012-2016 PI SENSIBALCO ANR project 'role of beahvioural sensitization phenomenon in alcohol addiction'

2013-2015 PI ALCOOLPREDICT project funded by the MILDECA 'Predictive factors (neurocognitive & genetic) involved in the vulnerability to binge drinking

2009-2014 PI european project AlcoBInge 'Impact of binge drinking on brain and vulnerability to alcohol addiction'

2015 - Appointed Vice-president of the French Federation of Addictology (FFA)

2015 - Appointed knight in the order of Academic Palms

2015 - Elected President of the Société française d'alcoologie - http://www.sfalcoologie.asso.fr

2015 - Elected member of the National Academy of Pharmacy - http://www.acadpharm.org/index.php

Sept 2007 – Pres Professor Physiology Pharmacy School, head of INSERM ERI 24 Unit; Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France.

2005 HDR, University of Picardie Jules Verne, France: "Neurobiological bases of alcoholism: genetic & early life exposure" Research Group on Alcohol & Pharmacodependence (GRAP), INSERM ERI 24; Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France.

2011 - Awardee National Academy of Medicine, Prize "lFighting against alcoholism"

2009 - Director of the INSERM ERI 24 unit

 Jan 2000 - Sep 2007 Lecturer Pharmacy School Research Group on Alcohol & Pharmacodependence (GRAP), Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France. Research topics: Fetal alcohol syndrome and alcohol addiction libility

Jan 1998 – Jan 2000 - Post-doctoral fellow (with Professor Elias K. Michaelis) Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology; University of Kansas, Pharmacy School, Lawrence, KS, USA Research topics: Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of NMDA and NMDA-like receptors by chronic alcohol exposure in cultured cortical neurons.

1998 Ph.D. Neurosciences, University of Rouen, France "Neuronal nitric oxide synthase in alcoholism."

Scientific summary

Alcohol addiction is a very complex psychiatric disease with psychological, behavioural and somatic components. For two decades I am working on animal models of excessive alcohol drinking and alcohol addiction in order to decipher neurobiological bases of the pathology and to find new therapeutics. As addiction is considered as a pathological memory process we investigate synaptic plasticity changes and real time measurement of dopamine transmission to challenge current hypotheses of addiction.

My lab has now set up an original model of binge drinking in rat using an ethanol operant self-administration procedure and the gold standard to investigate addictive behaviour. In the latter model rodents are made dependent upon alcohol and display both physical and psychological signs of dependence. In this model the vulnerability to develop the more servere phenotype of dependence is explored. We are also interested by investigating the pathophysiology of alcoholic liver disease.

An important question is also the long term impact of early life ethanol exposure (in utero and adolescence) on brain functioning and vulnerability to addiction. We use both clinical and preclinical studies to answer this question.

Recently we have also set up an animal model of the comorbidity schizophrenia-alcohol abuse in order to investigate the neurobiological bases of the comorbidity.