{
  "abstract": "Postnatal brain growth is nonlinear, making precise stereotaxic targeting in the developing rat neocortex difficult without age-specific knowledge of cortical area locations. Traditional atlases visualize brain slices in the coronal plane, which can obscure top-down areal boundaries and subdomains. To address these shortcomings, we created a developmental stereotaxic atlas that maps the neocortex of postnatal day (P) 8, P12, P16, and P20 in male and female Sprague Dawley and Long–Evans rats onto a coordinate grid. After using a stereotaxic device to create a grid of fluorescent probes, we extracted the brain, flattened neocortical tissue, and stained it for cytochrome oxidase, which is predominantly found in layer IV of primary cortical areas. Reconstructions of the primary somatosensory, auditory, and visual cortices demonstrate high structural reproducibility within each age and strain group. Our atlas captures the location of primary cortical areas at these four ages, showing that neocortical expansion is nonisometric, expanding preferentially along the rostral-caudal axis. Finally, we complement these top-down maps by extracting local neocortical surface angles from an existing coronal atlas, enabling proper electrode orientation to be perpendicular to the developing neocortex. Ultimately, this anatomically verified resource provides a standardized blueprint that eliminates resource-intensive trial-and-error mapping and maximizes experimental reproducibility in developmental systems neuroscience.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Nicholas J. Sattler"
    },
    {
      "name": "Anna K. Grobengieser"
    },
    {
      "name": "James C. Dooley",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9868-9840"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/daextxrnm1442.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1523/eneuro.0237-26.2026",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13735418/",
  "id": "daextxrnm1442",
  "issns": [
    "2373-2822"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://www.eneuro.org/lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0237-26.2026",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "0200"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "7"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "Novel Tools and Methods"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "Open Source Tools and Methods"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13735418",
  "pmid": "42982587",
  "published": "2026-11-03",
  "publisher": "Society for Neuroscience",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/daextxrnm1442.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-05T00:21:04Z",
      "native_id": "10.1523/eneuro.0237-26.2026",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://www.eneuro.org/lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0237-26.2026"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-09T12:21:06Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13735418",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1523/eneuro.0237-26.2026"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "issn:2373-2822",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "A Stereotaxic Atlas of Primary Cortical Areas in the Developing Rat Brain from Postnatal Days 8 to 20",
  "title_text": "A Stereotaxic Atlas of Primary Cortical Areas in the Developing Rat Brain from Postnatal Days 8 to 20",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T12:21:06Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/daextxrnm1442",
  "venue": "eneuro",
  "versions": []
}