What the technology does
A novel platform that allows for constant maintenance of inhalation anaesthesia in neonatal mice. The device has been demonstrated to allow reliable manipulation of brain tissue for neuroscience research.
Advantage
Reliable anaesthesia is required for surgical procedures on mice, with inhalational anaesthetics being the most reliable and preferable method for animal welfare. However, for neonatal mice, inhalation anaesthesia is problematic due to a lack of appropriately sized platforms that can maintain anaesthesia during surgery.
At present, hypothermia is used for pups up to 5 days of age, but this has major animal welfare disadvantages including that the depth of anaesthesia is unknown and uncontrollable, and it has been suggested that the procedure can lead to tissue damage. Therefore, in accordance with 3Rs principles, the use of hypothermia is being restricted. The apparatus described here allows for gas inhalation to be used as a reproducible and more ethical method for maintaining anaesthesia in neonatal mice.
Intellectual Property
European Design Numbers 007571286-0001, 007571286-0002, 007571286-0003, and 007571286-0004.
Offering
This opportunity is available for licensing.
Publication
Ho, H., Fowle, A., Coetzee, M., Greger, I. H., and Watson, J., (2020). An inhalation anaesthesia approach for neonatal mice allowing streamlined stereotactic injection in the brain. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 342(108824)