Excision of whole intact mouse brain

Mechanical characterization experiments of brain tissue are performed to understand the mechanical behavior of brain tissue during normal physiology and pathophysiological processes including traumatic brain injury. Normal, healthy, undamaged, unfixed brain tissue specimens are required for these mechanical characterization experiments to ensure the properties being measured are not from damaged/diseased tissue which may lead to inaccurate and unreliable results regarding the mechanical behavior of healthy undamaged brain tissue. The process of excising brain tissue from the cranial vault of mouse cadavers can induce lacerations in the tissue that may affect its mechanical behavior. Therefore, it is imperative that brain tissue samples are excised without inducing damage to the tissue so that the normal undamaged mechanical properties can be measured. Here, a method to excise the entire intact mouse brain is presented: • The scalp is resected exposing the anterior portion of the skull. • Cranial bone is resected by incising along the cranial sutures and using the scalpel blade to remove the cranial segments. • Connective tissue is resected and the brain is removed from the cranial vault.