A Stereotaxic Atlas of Primary Cortical Areas in the Developing Rat Brain from Postnatal Days 8 to 20
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.
Related
- The human-specific gene FRMPD2B couples postnatal experience to the expansion of cortical connectivity
- PACS1 syndrome variant alters the proteomic landscape of developing cortical organoids.
- Organ scale Three-dimensional atlas of developing pelvic innervation for the mouse lower urinary tract.
- A lifespan single-cell atlas of the human developing hippocampus benchmarks familial Alzheimer's disease brain organoids.
- Spatially resolved single-cell atlas reveals cortical glial reactivity associated with regions of neuronal growth programs in both hemispheres after stroke
BibTeX
@article{sattler2026stereotaxic,
title = {{A Stereotaxic Atlas of Primary Cortical Areas in the Developing Rat Brain from Postnatal Days 8 to 20}},
author = {Nicholas J. Sattler and Anna K. Grobengieser and James C. Dooley},
journal = {eneuro},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1523/eneuro.0237-26.2026},
url = {https://www.eneuro.org/lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0237-26.2026},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - A Stereotaxic Atlas of Primary Cortical Areas in the Developing Rat Brain from Postnatal Days 8 to 20
AU - Nicholas J. Sattler
AU - Anna K. Grobengieser
AU - James C. Dooley
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
JO - eneuro
DO - 10.1523/eneuro.0237-26.2026
UR - https://www.eneuro.org/lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0237-26.2026
AB - 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.
SN - 2373-2822
ER -