MultiBrain® Technology is the cornerstone of the high quality and efficient neurohistologic processing performed by NSA. NSA is the ONLY source for MultiBrain® services in the world.

NSA has revolutionized the execution of histology services with our proprietary MultiBrain® Technology. With this technology, up to 16 rat or 25 mouse brains are embedded together in a solid matrix and processed as a single unit. The technique was developed to achieve uniformity of staining across cases, to provide "built-in" quality control and to make the subsequent analysis more efficient. (Also see MultiCord® for spinal cord embedding.)

Mass processing for neurohistology MultiBrain® is revolutionary because - for the first time - the economic and qualitative benefits of "mass production" are available in the neurohistologic field. Using MultiBrain® Technology, NSA is able to perform neurohistology up to 25 times faster than by conventional techniques. How does it work? 16 rats or 25 mouse brains are embedded in one block. Up to 8 entire spinal cords from rats may be embedded to yield segments sectioned in the transverse and longitudinal planes as specified by the researcher. The researcher specifies the location of each brain in the matrix. This enables efficiencies in subsequent neuroanalysis. Specimens are encased by the matrix, not infiltrated; therefore the matrix has no effect on staining. The block is freeze-sectioned (e.g. 30-40µ) with a sliding microtome, resulting in free-floating sections. All sections that are cut are collected in solutions appropriate for the planned stains or storage, creating a “resource of sections”. The designated sections are stained, mounted on slides and coverslipped by NSALabs® , then delivered back to the client. Free-floating sections are sent to the client when the client prefers to do their own stains. The remaining sections are stored at NSALabs® for potential future staining.

Multiple Embedding of Rat Brains 16 rat brains are encased in a gelatin block and then... The block is frozen and cut into sections and then... The sections are stained and mounted on slides and appear as shown above (Thionine stain on rats)

Advantages:

• Enables unified processing of multiple brains.

• Virtually the same levels of each brain/specimen are represented on each slide.

• During staining, all sections are exposed to exactly the same conditions, removing many of the variables common to traditional histology.

• Uniformity of staining across cases in each composite section provides inherent quality control across all the cases on each slide.

• High throughput and acceleration of analysis. The process is efficient for NSA and the researcher.

• MultiBrain® saves time, money and space, while providing a superior product!

Creating a Resource of Sections:

In MultiBrain® processing, every section that is cut is collected into a series of 24 cups. Each cut section is placed into the next cup in the series of 24, and the process cycles back to cup one for the 25th section. Each cup therefore, contains 1 of every 24th cut section; the adjacent cup contains every 24th section adjacent to those in cup one and so on. The result is a "resource of sections" which provides a valuable pool of material to work from, organized in a flexible manner.

For example, when processing mouse brains, we typically stain every 6th section. To accomplish this we would stain tissues from cups 1, 7, 13, and 19. The remaining cups are available from which clients can request other stains, whether planned in advance or warranted based on results from the first set of stains.

Also see MultiCord® Technology for spinal cord embedding solutions.

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