Deoxyglucose mapping in the cat visual cortex following carotid artery injection and cortical flat-mounting

Two techniques are described for improving the efficiency of the deoxyglucose metabolic mapping procedure for studies on the cat visual cortex. The first technique involves the bilateral cannulation of the lingual arteries and the symmetrical injection of 2-deoxy-D-[U-14C]glucose in amounts significantly smaller than required with systemic intravenous administration. The second technique is carried out at the end of the stimulation period and involves unfolding the grey matter of the occipital region of the unfixed cortex by blunt dissection (defibrillation) and cutting of the white matter to make a cortical flat-mount: this permits the preparation of large sections parallel to the cortical laminae and thus the interpretation of deoxyglucose uptake patterns in any one lamina over a large area of the visual cortex. The experiments are relatively cheap and the time required to flat-mount the cortices does not seem to produce any significant decrease in spatial resolution of the autoradiograms. In appropriate experiments (published elsewhere) the techniques allow a comparative analysis of the deoxyglucose patterns between hemispheres receiving different visual stimulation.