Technique for making spinal cord slices (for electrophysiology)?

Experimental Techniques
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Hello! This is a great discussion about cutting live slices for spinal cord electrophysiology. I wanted to respond on behalf our company, Precisionary Instruments, which created and makes the Compresstome vibratome.

We originally designed the Compresstome for cutting live slices for researchers in neuroscience. The Compresstome has these advantages:

  • Faster cutting speed: Compared to the Leica vibratome models, the cutting speed is faster, but the slices are just as healthy. The time saved for cutting helps prevent neurons from dying, especially when you can get the slices from the cutting solution to the incubation chamber in a shorter amount of time.

  • Decreased deflection: What does this mean? When you’re cutting with a vibrating microtome, you want the vibration to move left-and-right, not up-and-down. Deflections in the up-and-down direction causes shearing of the top surface of acute slices. This means that the surface cells will be damaged and will not be viable for e-phys. The Compresstome models with Auto-Zero Z technology (VF-200-0Z, VF-300-0Z) have a vibrating head that has been pre-calibrated for cutting where there is <1 um z-axis deflection. This yields healthier slice.s

  • Embedding for stability: The Compresstome requires that tissue specimens be embedded in agarose. We use low-melting temperature agarose so that the tissue’s temperature does not get too high. Embedding in 1.8 to 2.5 % agarose allows the entire tissue sample to be stabilized. For spinal cord tissues, you can place a the spinal cord onto a long piece of agar or solidified agarose, then insert it into the Compresstome specimen tube. Embed the contents of the tube in agarose, and the entire specimen will be stabilized for cutting.

I hope this helps answer some of the running questions about what vibratome to use for cutting spinal cords! We take great pride in helping our customers, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

Here is more information about our Compresstome:

Feel free to contact us, and we are happy to hear from you!
Website: www.precisionary.com
Phone: 617-682-0586
E-mail: info@precisionary.com
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