High-contrast en bloc staining of mouse whole-brain and human brain samples for EM-based connectomics

Abstract

Connectomes of human cortical gray matter require high-contrast homogeneously stained samples sized at least 2 mm on a side, and a mouse whole-brain connectome requires samples sized at least 5–10 mm on a side. Here we report en bloc staining and embedding protocols for these and other applications, removing a key obstacle for connectomic analyses at the mammalian whole-brain level.