The Coming of Adult Brain Slice Era
18 month old mouse - striatal cholinergic neuron
Many of the disease models, genetic defects and geriatric diseases do not
show symptoms until adult or senior age. In neuroscience researches, one
of the limitations for acute brain slice model is that the healthy brain
slices can only be obtained from young animals and very difficult to obtain
from older animals. Over 90% of the brain slice studies were carried out
on animals younger than 40 days old (mice or rats). There usually was a
time gap between the cell physiology data and the onset of the disease symptoms
that makes data correlation or interpretation some what difficult.
Recently, there is a substantial progress in the method for preparing adult brain slices. By using Compresstome™ microtome and a unique sectioning protocol, Dr. Ting in Duke University /MIT, can routinely obtain healthy adult and senior adult brain slices for patch clamp recording. His achievements will move the patch clamp experiment into a new territory: the adult brain slice era.
Your browser may not support display of this image. "I have used the Compresstome™ VF200 for the past 5 months in place of our Vibratome 1000 model slicer. I routinely prepare acute brain slices for electrophysiology from genetically modified mice. With the Compresstome I was able to prepare high quality slices with excellent preservation near the slice surface. The main advantages of this machine are the rapid speed of slicing and the manual stabilization afforded by the agarose embedding. I am able to prepare uniform slices in both the coronal and horizontal planes, and I routinely complete transcardial perfusion, brain removal, and slicing all within less than 10 minutes, which is half the time needed with the Vibratome model. By limiting the time required for slicing the brain tissue is able to recover more easily without significant anoxia, and my slices stay viable for up to 8 hours. I have successfully been able to do targeted whole-cell recordings from fluorescently labeled neurons in slices prepared from >1 year old mice, which is not generally possible with conventional slicers and methods."