Animal Surgery - Science topic

36 hours is a pretty long fast, but mice eat their feces, so if you did not clean the cage when starting the fasting period that might have an impact. When I have to clean the intestines (it was not after PFA perfusion though), I just turn them upside down and use tweezers to empty them and rinse them. Did you try that?

I always give analgesia like buprenorphine just before surgery and than morning/evening for three days post-surgery. That has worked very well in Nude rats. But normal mice even need less analgesia. You are giving antibiotics before and post-surgery. May be you should include some analgesia also. Swelling first day, I will be of some concerned but can not do much and will wait for 2/3 days, hope that will be go down. If any internal suture has not broken, sometime it can happen also. If veterinarian around, you should address this question to him/her. And watch your mouse morning /evening for few days regularly. Mice in general heal faster than other animals like rabbit.

If these are the probes you mean!?

Fully integrated silicon probes for high-density recording of neural activity

Existing extracellular probes record neural activity with excellent spatial and temporal (sub-millisecond) resolution, but from only a few dozen neurons per shank

I have been working for more than 20 years as a Vet orthopaedist for raptor rehabilitation center. Hence I had to treat and operate a lot of birds (different kind of). I've never seen any of them making any kind of self-surgery, except (as mentioned by Nigel Harcourt Brown) chewing off some dry devitalised tissues

Dear Fateme,

I do not know, if I understand your question in the right way.

A transplantation between different species (Xenotransplantation) is very hard!

Best regards,

Thomas

Maybe you are hitting a major blood vessel on the way...how big is the syringe you using and how fast what volume are you injecting? Did you change anesthetics - fresh bottle?

Are they all dying post surgery (hours within?), or also on the operating table? Hard to imagine it's a virus problem - you could maybe try in a cell culture to see if there is toxicity problem with the viral batch.

What strain of mice are you using, and what is their average weight. I am assuming you are only using males, correct? You may be using a suture that is slightly too small, allowing some blood to pass by the silicone tip, preventing a full MCA stroke. Its hard to tell without a devise to measure CBF. Also, are you using the Longa or Koizumi MCAO model?

I would highly recommend investing in a machine that can measure CBF through the skull in mice. There are a multitude of issues that can arise during the MCAO surgery, i.e. hemorrhage, collapsed vessels, etc., that will still produce the same transient phenotype, but are clearly different on LDF measures. 

Unfortunately, I don't see how you could expand the infarct region without increasing the duration of the stroke. In my view, there should be much more damage following an 80min stroke measured 24 hrs post-op than what your images are showing. This leads me to believe that your MCAO procedure is not completely blocking the the ICA/MCA intersection. 

Here is a recent reference I recommend reading:

I had a very high mortality when i keept them in the heating pad for a long time. So, don t use the lamp because you might be overheating them and the anesthesia blocks the termoregulation. Heating pad at 37 degress is the best, but swicht off sometimes if they have signs of hyperventilation.

I also add buprenorphine to the mix and use lower dose of ketamine (75mg/kg).

Good luck!

Hi Sam,

I would take a closer look at your anaesthetic technique then.

Have you observed the rat hearts for a longer period with occluded LAD- with the chest open, and seen how they then react. You are right, one would expect arrythmias to occur first- in humans at least. And just to be sure, you are not occluding the Left main?

You could also try occluding one of the other major branches of the heart (CX), and see if you see the same problem, would point to the problem being in another aspect of your procedure/anaesthesia.

Good luck

Sulman

J Small Anim Pract. 2007 Jul;48(7):404-9.

Duplex gall bladder associated with choledocholithiasis, cholecystitis, gall bladder rupture and septic peritonitis in a cat.

Moores AL1, Gregory SP.

I place catheters regularly in birds.  Both IV (more challenging and likely to be disrupted) and IO (a better choice in clinical medicine).  As stated above, the tibiotarsus is an excellent location, although I also use the radius and ulna regularly. I will use 25 and 27 g silicone catheters in the jugular, median metatarsal and the median ulnar veins.  All of these are accepted standards of care by the AVMA and the AAV.

Surgical or chemical ? Chemical blockade is very efficient and no bleeding.

To stop bleeding use either hypertonic saline or soap foam - prepared by you from solid soap and some water

Dear Gamal,

There are several surgical methods that have been developed such as unilateral anterior ligament transection and menisectomy to mimic the OA in different animals but unfortunately no method is ideal because each has advantages and disadvantages. It all depends on what you expect to show. I invite you to read the attached article which has revised your question. Good luck.

SM

I usually get the blood by decapitation, ideally on isofluran anaesthesia. Mostly I use rats (gilotine) but in mice (scissors) I guess you can get more than 0.5 ml by decapitating. My skilled Ecolleague is able to get more blood by cutting open the thorax and aspiring the blood by a needle and syringe directly from heart.

Regarding the centrifuging, I have good experience with leaving the blood to clogg any time from 15 min to 2 hrs and centrifuge at 3000-4000 RPM for 10 min. Haemolythic serum I get only when I centrifuge twice (when I clumsily remove the content).

Good luck!

Jana