Our Partners at the Allen Institute for Brain Science

Leaders in the Field of Neuroscience

Often heralded as leaders in the field, the Allen 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 vibratome 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.

Compresstome advantages:

The Figure above shows the ratio of healthy to dead cells near the surface of the tissue from a P18-P30 rat brain slice when taken with a traditional market vibratome (A) and of a Compresstome slicing various brain regions (B-L). As you can see, the ratio of healthy to dead cells in slices cut with a Compresstome vibratome is between 2-8 times higher than than of neurons from slices sectioned with a traditional market vibratome. The Compresstome is able to significantly increase the amount of healthy neurons on the surface of brain tissue, which is what makes our instrument the best choice for all electrophysiology researchers.

These are just a snapshot of the reasons the Compresstome is the best tissue slicer for electrophysiology research on the market!

• Doubles brain slice viability
• Faster cutting speed
• Preserves subcellular microstructure
• Dramatically increased slice survival time
• Superior brain slices from mature animals

Compresstome for Mature Brain slicing

Please visit www.BrainSliceMethods.com to learn more about mature brain slicing and see here why Dr. Jonathan Ting of the Allen Institute feels that the Compresstome vibratome from Precisionary Instruments is the best instrument for electrophysiology.