One of the main challenges in attempting to image mouse brains in their entirety is that the objectives required to do so are incredibly expensive and whole tissue labeling can take weeks without expensive equipment. Therefore, as we described in a recent article on rodent brain tissue clearing, it is far more practical to image a few thin slices of a rodent brain and then to digitally reconstruct later. For example, a 1 mm thick mouse brain tissue can be immunolabeled in a day and imaged using an air objective on an inverted or upright confocal microscope.
To help with slicing mouse brains into 1 mm thick sections, we have launched 1 mm coronal and sagittal mouse brain slicers which are inexpensive, easy-to-clean and easy to use.