ABSTRACT
Preparation of brain slices is necessarily accompanied by a period of transient ischemia, spanning the interval between the killing of the animal and the return of the sliced tissue to an oxygen- and glucose-containing environment. The use of gene expression to characterize the impact of preparation conditions on brain slices is at an early stage of development. This raises a final prospect for future efforts to use c-fos induction and other changes in gene expression as criteria by which to identify methods to circumvent the triggering events associated with slice preparation. In view of the changes in expression of Fos and, presumably, other transcription factor proteins in brain slices, subsequent alterations in the regulation of diverse target genes are likely. The insult experienced by brain slices during preparation is most analogous to that which occurs in animal models of global ischemia that model the human condition of cardiac arrest and resuscitation.
