Marten P. Smidt, PhD, Professor Molecular Neuroscience, UvA

Within our laboratory we study the molecular biology that is behind developmental mechanisms in the central nervous system. As a model system we study the meso-diencephalic dopaminergic neurons.

As shown on the right we try to incorporate fundamental data with clinical data in human subjects and pathology. In this scheme we couple the molecular data derived from animal studies to the generation of mouse models. These two data sets allow us to compare these processes in the human situation as in Parkinson's disease, addiction and psychiatric disorders.

To study developmental processes we use complex gene transfer models to track these neurons as they leave the ventricular zone and start differentiating and move to there final position where they send out axons and receive inputs from other systems.

A picture of such an experiment (E14.5 analysis) is shown below. Only the left side is electroporated, limited at the midline. The GFP positive cells represent young mdDA neurons that are electroporated at the ventricular zone (E12.5) and migrate down to their destination in the ventral mes-diencephalon.