A research paper entitled "Ventral Mesencephalon-Enriched Genes that Regulate the Development of Dopaminergic Neurons in Vivo" from Dr. Jiawei Zhou's laboratory at the Institute of Neuroscience was published in the Journal of Neuroscience on April 22, 2009. In this paper, the authors illustrated genetic pathways that control mesodiencephalic dopaminergic (mDA) neuron differentiation during development.

mDA neurons are essential for the regulation of multiple brain functions including movement control, emotion, and reward. Dysfunction of the mDA system is involved in the pathogenesis of several mental and neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and schizophrenia, many of which some are considered to have a neurodevelopmental origin. Thus understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying mDA development, a currently poorly understood area, could be of great interest to our understanding of these mental and neurological diseases. 

Ms. Min Yin (IBCB), Shuxi Liu, Yanqing Yin and colleagues have put huge efforts in the last several years to establish the expression profiles of genes in the ventral mesencephalon and unravel genetic programs that control late development of mDA neurons. They identified a set of genes that show spatially and temporally restricted expression in the ventral mesencephalon and are potentially important for mDA neuron development. Functional analysis on mice lacking the ventral mesencephalon-specific gene Ebf1 revealed that Ebf1 is essential for the terminal migration of mDA neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Thus, these studies identified a set of VM-enriched genes that are important for mDA neuron differentiation and migration. The analyses also provides a genetic framework for further investigation of the molecular mechanisms mediating mDA neuron development.