Stereotaxic operation in the neonatal rat; a novel and simple procedure.

Since no simple method for standardized positioning of very young rats in a stereotaxic device has been described in the literature, a new method for stereotaxic placement in the neonatal rat was developed, which only requires a simple body mould of the rat pup, and a minor adaptation of a rabbit stereotaxic apparatus (Kopf). The costs of the materials needed for construction of the neonatal rat body mould were approximately $1.-. Construction of the body mould took about one hour. Reliability and accuracy of the new method are demonstrated in a series of experiments in which the A10 group of dopaminergic cell bodies in the ventral tegmental area of 1-day-old rats were lesioned bilaterally: 15 out of 20 angular electrode placements resulted in lesions, the centres of which were located within the A10 group of dopaminergic cell bodies in the ventral tegmental area (max. 0.8 mm in diameter).