Sampling Cerebrospinal Fluid and Blood from Lateral Tail Vein in Rats during EEG Recordings

Because the composition of body fluids reflects many physiological and pathological dynamics, biological liquid samples are commonly obtained in many experimental contexts to measure molecules of interest, such as hormones, growth factors, proteins, or small non-coding RNAs. A specific example is the sampling of biological liquids in the research of biomarkers for epilepsy. In these studies, it is desirable to compare the levels of molecules in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and in plasma, by withdrawing CSF and plasma in parallel and considering the time distance of the sampling from and to seizures. The combined CSF and plasma sampling, coupled with video-EEG monitoring in epileptic animals, is a promising approach for the validation of putative diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Here, a procedure of combined CSF withdrawal from cisterna magna and blood sampling from the lateral tail vein in epileptic rats that are continuously video-EEG monitored is described. This procedure offers significant advantages over other commonly used techniques. It permits rapid sampling with minimal pain or invasiveness, and reduced time of anesthesia. Additionally, it can be used to obtain CSF and plasma samples in both tethered and telemetry EEG recorded rats, and it may be used repeatedly across multiple days of experiment. By minimizing the stress due to sampling by shortening isoflurane anesthesia, measures are expected to reflect more accurately the true levels of investigated molecules in biofluids. Depending on the availability of an appropriate analytical assay, this technique may be used to measure the levels of multiple, different molecules while performing EEG recording at the same time.