Preparation of Cortical Brain Slices for Electrophysiological Recording

Acute brain slices allow electrophysiological and imaging techniques to be applied vitro to the study of neuronal ion channels, synaptic plasticity, and whole-cell function in juvenile and adult tissue. Ion channel recordings from small dendritic branches axons in brain slices have demonstrated considerable functional differences in ion channel function within subregions of single cells. These findings have greatly increased understanding of neuronal computation. This chapter presents methods for obtaining high-quality brain slices developed to aid visualization of small neuronal structures using differential interference contrast microscopy