The novel Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi stands out for its powerful exploration of deeply relatable themes such as family struggle, faith, identity, and science. What makes it especially unique is how it ties together emotional experiences with scientific study. The main character, Gifty, is a neuroscience PhD student whose research into addiction and reward-seeking behavior is not only for academic growth but also deeply personal. As she searches for scientific answers, she is also trying to make sense of the pain and loss in her own life especially her brother’s addiction and her mother’s depression.

Gifty is a PhD student studying neuroscience at Stanford University. Her work focuses on understanding how the brain responds to pleasure and pain, specifically in relation to addiction. In her lab, she runs experiments on mice to study reward-seeking behavior, a biological concept that refers to how living beings are driven to seek out things that feel good such as food, praise, or drugs. This behavior is controlled by a system in the brain called the reward circuit, which includes areas like the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens. For Gifty, this research is personal. Her older brother, Nana, became addicted to opioids after an injury. He was prescribed painkillers for physical relief, but over time, he relied on them more and more. According to Volkow et al., addiction is a chronic brain disease involving changes in the brain’s reward, stress, and self-control circuits—changes that can lead to compulsive drug use despite severe harm (“The Neuroscience of Drug Reward and Addiction,” 2019, p. 2). This supports what Gifty observed: addiction disrupts a person’s ability to regulate behavior and resist cravings. Through her studies, she hopes to understand what happens in the brain that leads someone like Nana to keep using, even when it causes suffering.

Addiction is more than just using drugs too much; it’s a brain disorder that makes it extremely hard to stop even when someone wants to. In Transcendent Kingdom, Gifty understands this deeply. As a neuroscience PhD student, she doesn’t just study addiction she’s haunted by the memory of her brother Nana, who lost his life to it. To Gifty, addiction isn’t about weakness or bad choices it’s a mystery she’s determined to solve. Scientifically, addiction is linked to the brain’s reward system and the chemical dopamine. When someone uses drugs, large amounts of dopamine are released, creating intense pleasure. Over time, the brain adjusts and starts to rely on the drug just to feel normal. This is called dopamine dysregulation. It leads to habit formation, where the brain builds automatic pathways toward drug use. As one researcher explains, “Neuroplasticity in the brain’s reward system following repeated drug use leads to more habitual and (in vulnerable people) more compulsive drug use, where people ignore the negative consequences” (Mavrikaki). Gifty’s research with mice focuses on how these patterns form, especially after early trauma.

Before his addiction, Nana was everything a big brother should be confident, funny, and full of life. As a popular athlete in a mostly white town, he carried pressure and pain that weren’t always visible. After his injury, painkillers didn’t just numb his physical pain they minimized deeper emotional wounds: racism, abandonment, and feeling out of place. Gifty’s grief drives her to understand his downfall, not just emotionally, but biologically.

In Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi shows that addiction is both a personal experience and a scientific issue. The novel focuses on things we may see often like addiction but don’t always understand, especially why some people are more vulnerable than others. Both the novel and the scientific research help us examine addiction on a deeper level. For Gifty, neuroscience isn’t just a career it’s her way of making sense of her family’s pain, especially her brother’s struggles. Understanding her research helps us better appreciate Gifty’s emotional journey and the strength it takes for her to keep searching for answers. By blending literature and biology, we can see both the facts and the feelings behind human behavior. Gifty’s story reminds us that science isn’t only about data and experiments it’s also about people, healing, and the search for meaning.

Volkow, Nora D., et al. “The Neuroscience of Drug Reward and Addiction.” Physiological Reviews, vol. 99, no. 4, 2019, pp. 1557–1616. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00019.2018.

Mavrikaki, Maria. “Brain plasticity in drug addiction: Burden and benefit.” Harvard Health Publishing, 26 June 2020, www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/brain-plasticity-in-drug-addiction-burden-and-benefit.