Craniotomy for acute monitoring of pial vessels in the rodent brain
Refat Aboghazleh,
Baraah Alkahmous,
Evyatar Swissa,
Saara Mansoor,
Alon Friedman,
Ofer Prager
Affiliations
Refat Aboghazleh
Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, Jordan; Department of Medical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine and Brain Repair Center, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada; Corresponding author at: Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, Jordan.
Baraah Alkahmous
Department of Internal Medicine, Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Evyatar Swissa
Departments of Physiology and Cell Biology, Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
Saara Mansoor
Department of Medical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine and Brain Repair Center, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Alon Friedman
Departments of Physiology and Cell Biology, Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel; Department of Medical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine and Brain Repair Center, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Ofer Prager
Departments of Physiology and Cell Biology, Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
A growing awareness for vascular contribution to pathogenesis of brain diseases increases the need for techniques that allow high-resolution imaging and quantification of changes in function and structure of cerebral microvessels. Cerebral vessels are very sensitive structures, making them vulnerable for injury. In addition, they are uniquely characterized with the blood-brain barrier, and an extra caution is required during procedures that involve engagement of cerebral vessels (i.e., craniotomy).Using state of the art facilities, including 3D intravital microscope, we describe here in details: • The steps and equipment required for drilling a craniotomy and removing of the dura, while keeping brain parenchyma and vessels intact. This enables long duration of live and direct monitoring of pial vessels and imaging of BBB permeability. • We present the craniotomy procedure that relevant and compatible with imaging pial vessels and monitoring the blood-brain barrier in small rodents.
