Michela Marinelli and the science of addiction: "Drugs change, the harm increases."

To explain it with willpower alone is to ignore science. Drug addiction is a complex condition , rooted in age, stress, genetics, and early experiences (including prenatal experiences). In young people, it's intertwined with a little-known aspect: the adolescent brain's inability to learn from punishment. This is demonstrated by the studies of Michela Marinelli, an Italian neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Austin who has dedicated her life to addiction research and studies of dopamine neurons. "During a punishment, those neurons should pause for a moment. It's that pause that teaches us not to repeat a mistake. But in adolescents, that pause often isn't there. It's not rebellion. It's neurobiology."

Behind the scientist lies the story of a woman driven by a love of truth, who left Italy because she can't stand arrogance and egocentrism, and who adopted a child, the son of two drug addicts, now an at-risk teenager. "In the United States, we talk about substance use disorder , but I prefer to call it addiction. The word comes from the Latin addictum . Anyone who couldn't repay a debt was assigned, ad dictum , to someone who demanded payment, becoming their slave. Addiction works like this: something takes control, and you stop making decisions."

Marinelli studies what happens in the brain by conducting research on rats . She has published numerous studies and received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). In 2024, she was elected one of the top 5 American "Rigor Champions," researchers known for their methodological rigor.

Born in Rome, Michela Marinelli earned a degree in Pharmacy from La Sapienza University, a thesis on the role of hormones in stress, a PhD in Neuroscience from Bordeaux University, and a postdoc in North Chicago. She has forged her career path between Europe and the United States.

After graduating in Italy, they offered me a job as a non-degree technician at university. 'Come on, take that job, it's what they have,' they said. I balked, declined, and left first for my doctorate in France and then for a postdoc at North Park University in the United States.

From North Chicago, she traveled to California to present her research. It was there that she met the man who would become her future husband, a neurologist at UCSF (the University of California at San Francisco), a Stanford graduate and an expert on alcoholism. Today, Marinelli lives in Austin, runs an independent laboratory, and currently teaches proper research.

Stress and adolescence, according to his studies, are the two variables to consider in drug addiction . Let's start with stress. "Conditions of stress and extreme hardship, such as poverty, homelessness, and lack of food, change the brain and make it more predisposed to drug use and relapse." The activity of dopamine neurons, which Marinelli measures directly with electrodes implanted in the brain, increases. "The higher it is, the more vulnerable we become." And he adds: "Stress makes the brain more sensitive to immediate reward and less responsive to the inhibitory effects of punishment. Stressing a drug addict makes no sense from a neurobiological standpoint: it pushes them to seek even more drugs."

Another important study by Marinelli concerns adolescence. "Adolescents are predisposed to drug use. Once exposed, they learn to manage their intake worse, increase their consumption, and if someone raises the price, they don't hold back. For an adult, however, if, for example, the price of cigarettes is increased, if you punish them, or if you make access more difficult, consumption tends to decrease. But for adolescents, it doesn't work that way. On the contrary."

Meanwhile, science intertwines with life. Marinelli has adopted the son of two drug addicts . "I don't know if I'm saving him." Then he explains why. "I conducted research on what in the United States is called harm reduction. Policies, programs, and practices that aim to minimize negative health impacts. It means clean syringes and naloxone in your pocket: so if someone overdoses, they can use it. I asked some parents: 'Do you agree with harm reduction ?' They all replied: 'Of course, of course.'" But then the question changes. "In the second part of the questionnaire, I asked them: 'Would you talk to your child about it, or have you ever talked about it?' When the issue becomes personal, they all respond: 'No, not my child, he shouldn't.' And I find myself in exactly this position. Repeating all the things I know very well don't work."

There's a truth we should know. "We think with our brains and try to apply that way of thinking to brains that function profoundly differently. The most important thing to understand is precisely this: the brain doesn't work the same way for everyone .

If someone is a teenager, has a biological vulnerability, or is experiencing severe stress, their brain responds differently. Expecting them to behave "normally" is like telling someone in a wheelchair: "Get up and walk." They simply can't do it. Yet we continue to develop policies, laws, and approaches that ignore this reality. Changing them would be crucial, but it's incredibly difficult. I myself, who have studied these mechanisms for years, don't always succeed. I see it as a mother, not just as a scientist. We have minds that are quick to judge others, but when it comes to ourselves or our children, everything changes. It's painful to admit, but that's how it is.

Italy isn't in Micky Marinelli's future. Why? "I'm very sensitive to certain things that I haven't gotten over yet. As a child, they told me: ' You should only speak when the chickens pee.' What does that mean? That you should never speak. Even today, when someone at the post office says: ' There's a friend of mine, can he let me go in front?', I can't stand it. Back then, when someone won scholarships in Italy and France, they'd say: 'See how well we've prepared you, what a pedigree we're giving you?' As if the merit always belonged to the system. When I arrived in America and won prizes and awards, everything changed. The teachers told me: 'The the credit is yours. You work with me, not for me. " A whole new world opened up to me. Another way of thinking and doing research." Michela Marinelli has chosen to inhabit that new, more horizontal and meritocratic world.

Are drugs widespread today? "Yes, and above all, they're much stronger, starting with marijuana. There's more. Now they're producing synthetic drugs all the time . We don't even have time to understand how they work, or create laws to block them, before they've already invented another one. I see drugs a bit like war. Once upon a time, we fought with our hands, with clubs, with stones. Then came daggers, then they invented gunpowder, rifles, and today there's nuclear war. It's still war, but the damage is very different: from the stick to the atomic bomb. With drugs, it's the same thing. Before, someone might have chewed coca leaves. Now they smoke crack."

What have you learned in your life, in your career? "To be as independent as possible . To not rely on others, but at the same time, to be open to collaboration, to different points of view, to the possibility of changing your mind, of expanding your thinking. I've seen innovation explode every time someone with a different background joins the group."

What drives her is a love of truth. "One of the first things I said as a child was, 'I don't believe it.' I don't believe in many things. But finding the truth and solving a problem is what I have, and will continue to, dedicate my life to."