Encephalopsin expression has been documented in various brain tissues, including the preoptic area and paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, cerebral cortex, cerebellar Purkinje neurons, a subset of striatal neurons, selected thalamic nuclei, and a subset of interneurons in the ventral horn of the spinal cord. ESTs have been isolated from human blood, breast, cervix, colon, germ cell, head/neck, kidney, lung, pancreas, placenta, prostate, skin, testis, and uterus cancer libraries, as well as from normal human blood, brain, eye, heart, kidney, liver, liver/spleen, ovary, placenta, prostate, skin, testis, and B-cell/lung/testis libraries.