SNCA and synucleinopathy: To establish a pre-degenerative model of synucleinopathy in these two animal models, we characterized dopaminergic neuron survival and changes in αSyn following unilateral microinjection of either a virus expressing human α-synuclein (hαSyn; 1 μL of AAV-TH-hαSyn) or αSyn PFF (2 μg/μL; 0.5μL per region) into the VTA and the SNc (Fig. 1).