A simple screening procedure for evaluating central nervous system tissue sections showing structural and...

A simple method for rapidly screening and evaluating many areas of central nervous system tissue before and after flat embedding in Beem capsules is described. This method uses light microscopy to select regions surrounding needle track injuries of brain tissue for subsequent fine structural and enzyme cytochemical analysis of the blood-brain barrier. The mouse cerebral cortex was sectioned with a tissue chopper at 40-50 micrometers and reacted with diaminobenzidine to demonstrate the presence of exogenous horseradish peroxidase near an injured central nervous system site. Following the enzyme reaction, both osmicated and unosmicated tissue slices were processed for routine electron microscopy, infiltrated with unpolymerized resin, and evaluated on glass slides by light microscopy prior to flat embedding and polymerization. Numerous tissue specimens can be screened in this way for maximum information per tissue slice, and extra tissue samples can be polymerized on the glass slides and conveniently stored for future sectioning.