Daniell Callau (ESR14) attended a postgraduate course of 3 weeks at the University of Minho. The course entitle “Hands on the rodent brain” was the 2nd edition.

This course provides advanced knowledge and training on multiscale analysis of rodent brain. The focus is on practicing/performing different techniques/approaches:

1) intracranial surgeries in the mouse and in the rat
2) stereotaxic injection/dialysis of drugs, viruses, and cells
3) optogenetic control of specific cell populations
4) electrode implantation: spike and local field potential recording
5) brain tissue fixation, sectioning and immunofluorescence analysis
6) preparation of acute brain slices
7) patch clamp recordings
8) analysis of electrophysiological data
9) macrodissection of different brain areas with and without the use of brain slicer
10) intracellular fractionation and molecular trafficking using both WB
11) immunogold analysis & electron microscopy-based 3D reconstruction.

Aiming to bridge across fields of rodent brain analysis and intervention, this course brings together members of faculty with various expertise and heterogeneous backgrounds in a single hands-on course. Thus, the course offers a broad-range technical portfolio for multiscale analysis of brain connectome​.