Total cellular RNA was prepared using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen). Human-selective TaqMan™ probes were purchased from Life Technologies and PCR conditions followed the manufacturer’s recommendations. A sample of 17-week post-conception human fetal VTA RNA (a generous gift from Drs. Yuka Imamura Kawasawa and Nenad Sestan, Yale University) was used to normalize expression levels to obtain relative quantity (RQ) values. Statistical analysis was performed using R software; ANOVA was used to compare control and affected group means.
