10.4225/03/58a639dd5c2ca Watmuff, Bradley Bradley Watmuff Functional development of embryonic stem cell-derived midbrain dopaminergic neurons Monash University 2017 1959.1/979356 Calcium ion imaging monash:130616 Embryonic stem cells ethesis-20140813-114920 Dopaminergic neurons Neuronal differentiation thesis(doctorate) 2014 Restricted access 2017-02-16 23:46:35 Thesis https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/thesis/Functional_development_of_embryonic_stem_cell-derived_midbrain_dopaminergic_neurons/4663786 Because of their unique properties, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) promise to deliver an indefinite number of any type of somatic cell. Unfortunately, current differentiation protocols only result in heterogeneous mixtures of cells, often with a low percentage of the desired cell type. Consequently, much stem cell research is currently devoted to understanding the nature of, or improving the yield from differentiation, which has often meant that detailed functional studies of the cells obtained from ESCs have been ignored. In this study I generated dopaminergic neurons, the cell type lost from the midbrain of patients with Parkinson’s disease, and investigated some of the functional characteristics these neurons possess throughout differentiation.