Chantal Francois is an INSERM Researcher in the laboratory of Neurology and Experimental Therapeutics (INSERM U679) based at Salpetriere Hospital, Paris, France. She has been engaged in neuroscience research for over 25 years. She has authored numerous research papers, and has served as a peer reviewer for numerous journals. Her research interests involve anatomy and pathophysiology of basal ganglia using comparative analysis between normal healthy control subjects and parkinsonian patients or experimental primate models of Parkinson's disease and Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. Her group has recently focused on neurogenesis in aged primates, and discovered that the new striatal dopamine neurons that appeared in aged MPTP-treated macaques result from a phenotypic shift not neurogenesis.