Highly efficient and large-scale generation of functional dopaminergic neurons from stem cells

A protocol for efficient, large-scale generation of functional dopaminergic (DA) neurons from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), via the intermediate generation of homogeneous spherical neural masses (SNMs). These SNMs can be passaged many times without losing their differentiation capability and can be coaxed into DA neurons at high efficiency (86% of the total initiated neurons are tyrosine hydroxylase-positive neurons).