I'm looking for tips on how to prevent spreading depression that has been repeatedly occurring in my mouse visual cortex slices. I've been washing out Mg2+ to induce low frequency oscillations in these slices, but presumably due to potentiated NMDA receptor activity in the absence of the magnesium block, my slices only survive a fraction of the time due to spreading depression events (see attached video).

Some details...

- slices from younger mice (P20ish rather than P30ish) have higher survival

- spreading depression is less common at room temperature than more physiologic temperatures

- slices are cut with standard protocol (in ice cold high sucrose, high Mg2+ cutting solution)

- recovery and recording aCSF recipe in mM: NaCl 124, KCl 2.5, NaH2PO4 1.23, NaHCO3 26, CaCl2 2, MgCl2 1 (except when washed out), glucose 10

Thanks!