Stem Cells and Neurophysiology

Neural stem cell research has given a tremendous insight into the plasticity and regenerative potential of the brain within the last few years. A major focus involves the identification of factors manipulating the generation of divers cell types, e.g. dopaminergic neurons.
It is a major goal of our research program to investigate cell culture conditions that drive dopaminergic differentiation of NSCs and NPCs. To have a broad range of possibilities to distinguish differentiation, different cell types are used, i.e. human ventral midbrain derived NPCs ReNcell VM cells (ReNeuron, Guildford, UK), human embryonic stem cells SA002.5 (Cellartis, Gothenburg, Sweden) and midbrain derived primary NPCs (NeuroProgen, Leipzig, Germany), which have high capacity to differentiate to neurons, esp. to dopaminergic neurons.