Functional mitochondrial analysis in acute brain sections from adult rats reveals mitochondrial dysfunction in a rat model of migraine.

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in many neurological disorders that only develop or are much more severe in adults, yet no methodology exists that allows for medium-throughput functional mitochondrial analysis of brain sections from adult animals. We developed a technique for quantifying mitochondrial respiration in acutely isolated adult rat brain sections with the Seahorse XF Analyzer. Evaluating a range of conditions made quantifying mitochondrial function from acutely derived adult brain sections from the cortex, cerebellum, and trigeminal nucleus caudalis possible. Optimization of this technique demonstrated that the ideal section size was 1 mm wide. We found that sectioning brains at physiological temperatures was necessary for consistent metabolic analysis of trigeminal nucleus caudalis sections. Oxygen consumption in these sections was highly coupled to ATP synthesis, had robust spare respiratory capacities, and had limited nonmitochondrial respiration, all indicative of healthy tissue. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique by identifying a decreased spare respiratory capacity in the trigeminal nucleus caudalis of a rat model of chronic migraine, a neurological disorder that has been associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. This technique allows for 24 acutely isolated sections from multiple brain regions of a single adult rat to be analyzed simultaneously with four sequential drug treatments, greatly advancing the ability to study mitochondrial physiology in adult neurological disorders.