An applicable method of drawing cerebrospinal fluid in rats

Component analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is frequently required to probe the causes and pathologic mechanisms of disease and effective drugs in experimental studies of the central nervous system. Rat and mouse are two kinds of most frequently used animals in experimental studies. Rats are considered to be the most suitable animal for experimental analysis of CSF both on cost and manipulability as mice are too small for drawing CSF. However, drawing CSF from rats is still not easy, which makes many researchers choose bigger animals, such as rabbits. This paper introduced a highly applicable technique of CSF collection from cerebellomedullary cistern (CC) in rats.

CSF collection with this technique was performed by direct CC puncture using a collection apparatus with negative pressure. The apparatus consists of a 1ml syringe, a disposable intravenous infusion needle and a clip. The needle was cut and made less sharp than the original one to avoid injury to the brain and spinal cord.

We have collected CSF multiple times from each rat with this approach and the collection lasted less than 30s each time on average. The length of the collection needles of the CSF was conformed to the different body sizes (weight) of the rats in the 3 groups. Compared with currently existing methods, this is faster, safer, simpler and repeatable.

CSF collection by CC puncture using a negative pressure collection apparatus is fast to operate, safe to the rats, and maximum amount of CSF can be collected.