A technique for collecting cerebrospinal fluid using an intraventricular cannula in rats.

The difficulty in obtaining cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) in an efficient and simple manner in rats prompts us to introduce a new technique that makes use of a cannula placed in the lateral ventricle. The cannula is implanted with a stereotaxic apparatus and the CSF is collected with a glass capillary tube. The technique has proved to work well for experiments in which the CSF must be free of blood. It also permits the collection of volumes of CSF sufficient for radioimmunoassays, and may be used in chronic experiments.