The following paper will give you detailed instructions for the dissection of different brain areas, including striatum (caudate putamen and globus pallidus) and hippocampus:

Glowinski J, Iversen LL.

Regional studies of catecholamines in the rat brain. I. The disposition of [3H]norepinephrine, [3H]dopamine and [3H]dopa in various regions of the brain.

J Neurochem. 1966 Aug;13(8):655-69

Well it is a description for the dissection of various rat brain areas, but I could use this instruction also for mouse brains (mouse brains will need more preparation skills because its approx. 4 to 5 times smaller than rat brain, but anatomically they are very similar).

If you need further assistance please contact me via email, I think I have also step by step photos of this dissection procedure.

Best,

Murat

Your best bet may be to use a brain matrix (http://www.zivicinstruments.com/mouse-brain-slicers-matrix-section.html) and make 1-2 mm coronal slices around your region of interest and then from there perform a tissue punch at your area of interest using a sample core puncher (http://www.gelifesciences.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/catalog/en/GELifeSciences/products/AlternativeProductStructure_17099/). If you go around Bregma -1.5 you may be able to get both striatum and hippocampus in one shot though typically, I would take it from two separate slices. We have used this successfully in the past to specifically isolate these regions. You can use positive controls for dissection accuracy (i.e. TH or DAT in the striatum).

PS: practice on some young wt mice before you do the real dissection!

Good luck.

I also suggest a brain matrix and an atlas to determine approximately where the striatum should be in reference to 1-2mm slices. In general, I only ever took sections from the 2mm slices and used the 1mm slots as spacers to get to the next region of interest. After that, I microdissected my region of interest out using a scalpel and a microscope. I prefer that to punches because regions like the striatum have different cell populations that might give you very different results depending on your downstream assay so I just took the whole thing. The striatum is really easy to do this with because it has extremely clear boundaries. Again, you could probably get hippocampus and striatum from the same 2mm section but you might as well be safe and take them from separate sections.

If you're not familiar with dissecting from a brain yet, just make sure it's cold. After you get it out, set it on something sterile in an ice bucket for a couple of minutes. It's easier to get in the matrix without damaging it that way. Make sure all your tools are cold as well.

Take the whole brain out the skull, divide it in two brain halves. Take cortex of the half and be aware to leave the hippocampus and olfactory bulb.