Dopaminergic neurons develop axonal projections to their target areas in organotypic co-cultures of the ventral mesencephalon and the striatum/prefrontal cortex.

Mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons are known to project to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the striatum (STR). Organotypic slice co-cultures of the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra (VTA/SN)-complex and the PFC or STR, respectively, were used to analyze the cytoarchitectural organization of the VTA/SN-complex and the innervation pattern of the target slices by dopaminergic fibers. After 10-28 days of culturing immunocytochemistry with antibodies against tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) was performed. The VTA/SN-complex revealed in vitro an organization of TH-positive cells similar to those observed in rat brains of comparable age. TH-immunoreactive cells exhibited their typical morphology and formed long processes. No TH-immunolabeled elements were found in single cultures of PFC and STR. Tracing of VTA/SN fibers with biocytin as well as TH-immunostaining showed numerous labeled fibers in the co-cultured slices. Extensive fiber crossing was observed in the co-cultures of the VTA/SN-complex and STR but only a sparse fiber bridge in the co-cultured slices of VTA/SN-complex and PFC. The VTA/SN-complex-PFC system obviously retained several of its in vivo characteristics, e.g. the fiber network in the prefrontal cortical subareas. Our results demonstrate that TH-immunoreactive neurons develop their typical innervation pattern in slice co-cultures of VTA/SN-complex and PFC or STR, respectively. This in vitro approach may be useful for investigations of the dopaminergic function in the VTA/SN-prefrontal pathway.