The pattern of cell proliferation in the midbrain A. Nedlina-Chittka, A. Wizenmann Fig. We started to study cell proliferation in the developing midbrain. During development the cell proliferation rate of dorsal midbrain is higher compared to the ventral region. This difference in cell proliferation may be the cause of the different way in that the two midbrain areas expand. We are interested in whether there are different centres of proliferation within those areas.
Nothing is known so far about the ventral midbrain.
However, studies in the chick hindbrain have shown that in this brain region only a few cells that are organised in longitudinal stripes are proliferating. This might be the case in ventral midbrain region since both hindbrain and ventral midbrain develop nucleic structures. First, we investigated whether the MHB is generally inhibitory for these axon populations. In transplantation experiments we have replaced ventral MHB with dorsal MHB and have shown that most of the MHB is indeed inhibitory for both axon populations. The MHB is known to express a number of molecules that are inhibitory for axonal growth, such as collapsin.