Rflsi pro

Pheasant chicks (190–210 g) and BALB/c mice (20–22 g) of either sex were anesthetized by isoflurane inhalation with an anesthesia respirator (R540IP, RWD Life Science). The head was fixed, and the scalp was cut longitudinally to expose the skull of the mouse. A gentle saline drip over the exposed surgical opening prevented dehydration of the skull. The blood flow in the cerebral cortex of the animals was monitored by a laser-speckle blood flow imaging system (Version 2.0, RFLSI Pro, RWD Life Science, Shenzhen, China, 2017) before and after the injection of the toxins.

At the end of all behavioral tests, the laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) was carried out to measure CBF by a commercial laser speckle blood flow imager (RFLSI Pro, RWD, Shenzhen, China). To measure the CBF, the rats were mounted on the stereotaxic apparatus (RWD, Shenzhen, China) under anesthesia with 1% isoflurane. The scalp was cut along the midline to expose the skull after shaving the hair. The tissues on the surface of skull were cleaned carefully (Li et al., 2017 (link)). Then, using a skull drill (RWD, Shenzhen, China) slowly thinned a 6 mm × 10 mm rectangular cranial window (centered at 1 mm posterior to the bregma). The skull was thinned until the cortical blood vessels were clearly visible. During the whole process, the normal saline was used to cool the skull avoiding brain tissue damaged by excessive temperature. Then, the position of the skull window was placed under the laser speckle imager for laser speckle imaging. The evaluation indexes were the number of vascular branches and the blood flow of the main vein.

The cerebral cortex blood flow of mice was measured as previously reported by Tian H. et al. [9 (link)]. Briefly, blood flow in the cerebral cortex of mice (BALB/c, 6-week-old, either sex) was monitored after scalp avulsion by laser-speckle imaging system (RFLSI Pro, RWD Life Science, Shenzhen, China) under an anesthesia respirator (R540IP, RWD Life Science). The real-time blood flow was monitored before and after tail vein injection of mucetin and stejnulxin.