To begin the extraction of the brain from the properly euthanized mouse, after separating the head from the rest of the body, expose the brain by initially cutting the skull along the sagittal suture. With the help of fine tweezers, remove the bones. Be careful not to damage the brain tissue beneath the skull during this step.
Using a spatula, carefully extract the brain from the skull. Place it into a 12-well plate containing cold Dulbecco's Phosphate Buffered Saline, or DPBS. Next, transfer the entire brain onto the silicon pad, where the dissection will take place.
Use a scalpel to remove the olfactory bulb located at the rostral end of the brain, and the cerebellum situated in the coddle part while retaining the central portion of the brain containing both lateral ventricles. Then divide the brain along the longitudinal fissure into two hemispheres before proceeding with the dissection of both hemispheres separately. Working with one hemisphere, reorient it so that the medial area faces upward.
Open the brain along the line of the corpus callosum, separating the cortex and striatum from the hippocampus, septum, and diencephalon, thereby exposing the lateral ventricles. Remove the hippocampus, septum, and encephalon, following the ventral limit of the ventricles. Then remove the tissue beyond the rostral and coddle ends of the subventricular zone or SVZ, and the cortex, following the corpus callosum.
Tilt the tissue so that the SVZ faces sideways. Remove the striatal tissue beneath the SVZ to obtain a thin piece of tissue containing the neural stem cells. Store both dissected SVZs from the mouse in a 12-well plate containing cold DPBS till tissue processing.
