A procedure in mice to obtain intact pituitary-infundibulum-hypothalamus preparations: a method to evaluate the reconstruction of hypothalamohypophyseal system.

Purpose: The histopathological study of brain tissue is a common method in neuroscience. However, efficient procedures to preserve the intact hypothalamic-pituitary brain specimens are not available in mice for histopathological study.
Method: We describe a detailed procedure for obtaining mouse brain with pituitary-hypothalamus continuity. Unlike the traditional methods, we collect the brain via a ventral approach. We cut the intraoccipital synchondrosis, transection the endocranium of pituitary, broke the spheno-occipital synchondrosis, expose the posterior edge of pituitary, separate the trigeminal nerve, then the intact pituitary gland was preserved.
Result: We report an more effective and practical method to obtain continuous hypothalamus -pituitary preparations based on the preserve of leptomeninges.
Compared With the Existing Methods: Our procedure effectively protects the integrity of the fragile infundibulum preventing the pituitary from separating from the hypothalamus. This procedure is more convenient and efficient.
Conclusion: We present a convenient and practical procedure to obtain intact hypothalamic-pituitary brain specimens for subsequent histopathological evaluation in mice.
(© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)