Striatal injection of 6-OHDA or Saline and post-operative care (Mendonça et al 2024)

Place the anesthetized mouse in the stereotaxic apparatus then stabilize the head.

Make a skin incision to expose the skull.

Carefully remove any connective and muscle tissue from the exposed area.

Level the skull surface to be at less than 0.05mm by comparing the height of bregma and lambda, and also in medial-lateral directions.

Find the injection coordinates and mark area for drilling: dorsolateral striatum +0.5 mm anteroposterior and ±2.5 mm lateral from bregma and 3.0 mm deep

Drill Burr-holes in marked areas carefully.

Load glass pipette into the pipette holder (Nanojet II (Drummond Scientific)) and affix to the stereotaxic frame.

Set rate of injection to 4.6 nL per 5 seconds.

Inject 2 ul of 6-OHDA or saline.

After the injection finishes, leave the pipette in place for 10-15 minutes.

After surgery each animal had access to up 4 mg of food pellets/day (some mice were on food restriction pre-surgery)

Mice that showed weight loss were hand-fed (i.e. they were presented with the food while being held by the hands of the investigator) and DietGel Boost was placed in their boxed up to 4 days after surgery. In order to avoid competition for the food, weaker mice were placed in cages other than those containing unimpaired mice. The postoperative survival rate was 100%.