Patch-clamp recordings in slices of telencephalon, diencephalon and rhombencephalon of salamanders

Abstract The salamander is a key limbed vertebrate from which many major scientific questions can be addressed in the fields of motor control, evolutionary biology, and regeneration biology. An important gap of knowledge is the description of the electrophysiological properties of the neurons constituting their central nervous system. To our knowledge, some patch-clamp electrophysiological recordings were done in the spinal cord and recently in hindbrain slices, but not in any higher brain region. Here, we present a method to obtain patch-clamp recordings in slices of the telencephalon, diencephalon and rhombencephalon of salamanders. The method includes dissection of the brain, brain slice preparation, visual identification of neurons and patch-clamp recordings. We provide single cell recordings in the rhombencephalon, diencephalon and telencephalon of salamanders. This method should open new avenues to dissect the operation of salamander brain circuits at the cellular level. Highlights- Salamander brain slices of telencephalon, diencephalon, and rhombencephalon- Patch-clamp recordings in salamander brain slices- The salamander as a model to decipher tetrapod neural microcircuits