Craniotomy for acute monitoring of pial vessels in the rodent brain

Refat Aboghazleh; Baraah Alkahmous; Evyatar Swissa; Saara Mansoor; Alon Friedman; Ofer Prager

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2022.101694

Craniotomy for acute monitoring of pial vessels in the rodent brain

MethodsX. 2022 Apr 8:9:101694. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2022.101694. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Refat Aboghazleh^{1

2}, Baraah Alkahmous³, Evyatar Swissa⁴, Saara Mansoor², Alon Friedman^{4

2}, Ofer Prager⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, Jordan.
² Department of Medical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine and Brain Repair Center, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
³ Department of Internal Medicine, Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Departments of Physiology and Cell Biology, Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: ACSF, artificial cerebrospinal fluid; BBB, blood-brain barrier; Blood-brain barrier; CNS, central nervous system; Cerebrovascular imaging; Cranial window; Craniotomy; ECs, endothelial cells; Electrocorticography; SpO2, blood oxygen saturation.