[Histonet] rodent brain: how to avoid air bubbles in the ventricles after perfusion?

[Ekaterina Vinnik]

Dear all,
I'm new to this list - and was really happy to find it. Does anybody have
any advice on how to do rat brain extraction in such a way that the air
would not get into the ventricles? We are doing MRI on the ex vivo rat
brains, and the air which gets in causes nasty artifacts. I am looking for
consistent way to avoid the bubbles, cause .
The way we are extracting the brain now is to isolate the head, peel the
skull from the top and from the sides, crush the nasal bone, expose the
bulbs, remove dura, cut the nerves, lift the brain..  I was never concerned
with this problem until I started doing MRI - and here it turns out to be
really important.

I was wondering if I should just leave the dura in place during extraction,
for example, would that work?

Thank you in advance!
Katya

-- 
Ekaterina Vinnik, MD, PhD
Behavioural neuroscience lab,
Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme,
Lisbon,
Portugal

+351918951392
lulswinnik at gmail.com