Brain (live or acute)

Jonathan T. Ting is an Assistant Investigator at the Allen Institute, where he joined in 2013 to provide electrophysiology expertise for the Human Cell Types program, and to develop functional assays on human ex vivo brain slides. In this webinar, Dr. Ting discusses which key steps in the brain slice process is most important and why, and challenges our conventional beliefs of slicing solutions and methodologies.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Henderson and his focus on the role tobacco and vaping flavors play in addiction-related behaviors, and uses the Compresstome® vibrating microtome to make all of their acute brain slices for patch-clamp electrophysiology.

Often heralded as leaders in the field, the Allen Brain institute performs pioneering research on all manner of brain tissue. Working with brain tissue can often be as frustrating as it is rewarding. Slicing brain tissue presents many challenges. The tissue is a combination of soft and fibrous regions. For over a decade, researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have been using the Compresstome^® vibrating microtome to help give them better brain slices with increased longevity and reduced damage to surface neurons. This enables neuroscientists to have healthy neurons for patch-clamp electrophysiology experiments.

Researchers have used the Compresstome^® in their procedure to section mouse embryo hypothalamus that has been injected with DNA and electroporated. This procedure demonstrates how it is possible to transfect nuclei in the hypothalamus region which are less accessible than those in superficial regions. Following this procedure additional experiments can be performed such as immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization.

Dr. Ransdell explores how the Compresstome vibrating microtome is used to produce healthy brain slices for electrophysiology. He studies adult Purkinje neurons in mouse cerebellar brain slices.

In this webinar, Dr. Wang will:

• Discuss to quantify nascent silent synapses using electrophysiology
• Explore how to perform ex vivo calcium imaging on brain slices
• Share tips & tricks of brain sectioning to help reduce frustration for electrophysiology recordings