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Hi all,
hope you are having a good day I need a recipe for pickled brains for a Bio dissection. I can't remember what quantities of what solutions are needed and I seem to have lost the recipe. This solution makes the brains firmer and easy to slice Now what was I having for dinner?
Rosemary

I just pickled mine in metho for a couple of days. Ensuring that they were completely covered, and I changed the solution after a day because it looked grotty and I felt it was needed.

They lasted for several weeks. The person that asked about them then took several weeks to get around to the disection.

Wendy

I'm not sure where this came from - maybe an earlier thread on Chemtalk - but it might be what you need.

Fresh / freshly defrosted brains can be a bit mushy and somewhat difficult to dissect cleanly.
Here are some ideas for solving this problem:
1. Dissect the brain while still slightly frozen.
2. Defrost them the day before and keep them in the fridge, but 1 hour before use dry them in an incubator at about 50deg. This will firm them up slightly.
3. Soak for a couple of hours in ethanol or methylated spirits, just prior to use or overnight if needed first thing.
4. Use Saturated Salt solution as a fixative. This should be made up using tap water and stored at 40 C for 6 days. It is imperative that the brain's position in the fluid be altered and the fluid agitated on a daily basis as this will ensure good all-round fixation.
These fixative methods gives medium to good results especially when you consider the cost of the brains.

Carol

well done Carol, it was from a passed thread. I was do a search, could not find it, came back to chemtalk, and you had done it. Thanks

Thanks for that I will look forward to attempting the process
Rosemary

Just what I need!

Thanks Rosemary for starting the thread, and to the others that replied, saved me having to do a search.

Now I can share my wisdom with the teachers and make them all happy.