Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra. The major barrier for the study of PD has been the inaccessibility of living neuronal populations from patients and the lack of suitable in vitro models. Neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y provides an unlimited supply of human cells, exhibits neuronal marker enzymes and express receptor and transporter for dopamine (DA). While, undifferentiated and proliferative SH-SY5Y cells do not represent an appropriate experimental model for a chronic disease, such as PD, these cells can be differentiated becoming a stable population with morphology and biochemistry of mature neurons. The aim of this work was to develop a suitable SH-SY5Y cell model of DAergic neurons by comparing the effects of retinoic acid, phorbol ester 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate and staurosporine to induce neuronal differentiation. The parameters taken into account were cell growth, morphology and expression of DAergic-phenotype markers. We found that cells differentiated for 7 days with 5 nM staurosporine present the most pronounced growth inhibition, a good induction of neurite outgrowth and an up-regulation of vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT-2), representing a suitable experimental model for studying the pathophysiology of PD.