At the moment I am trying to start a protocol involving cannulas implantation in specific regions of rat and mouse brains, and for that I will need to buy a stereotaxic instrument. I found a lot of alternative companies to buy from but I am particularly focused on two of them. If anyone can give me feedback about the instruments from Stoelting and World Precision that would be really good.
I would go for a single arm and no electronics attached. Those are not really helpful to correct your coordinates but just help in doing the surgery more visual and sometimes fast (in case of the display showing axis movements). I would ask for quotes to Stoelting or Kopf (I don't know WPI frames but they may be good as well). I used both of them. I recommend to check also the pricing infos for add ons for any of the frames you are considering, in advance so you know how much it would cost for you to upgrade the instrument. I was using a kopf for cannula implantation. You eventually need a cannula-holder to place the cannulas on the skull. Which could be an additional 250 euros, or something similar (if you are in Portugal).
Stoelting has the same tool and WPI as well... In my opinion KOPF looks more well made, robust and stable... But I don't want to make bad advertising...it could be just due to different lab usage.
Regarding the add-ons, If you don't need to use strange angles but you will do always orthogonal injections - as for cannula implantation - you can even think of buying just rat earbars (they can be used for both rats and mice), so it would be cheaper. If you use mice, you will need a mouse jaw holder (if not included), which is different from the one made for rats of course (is basically the steel support to keep the jaw closed). If you need to move around (also changing angles) maybe the "small animal holder" (to understand, this would be the black steel support on the stoelting website, it comes with smaller earbars and smaller jaw holder) is more useful because it has finer regulation for the height of earbars and jaw holder. In addition, due to the more advanced position in respect to the holder/cannula/pipette support, it allows a wider range of angles and movements (but of course is more expensive). So it depends what you plan to do.
I would avoid electronic assisted frames simply because:
1) if there is an issue you have to call the company and the instrument can't be used (with the basic steel frame this rarely occurs, unless it drops on the floor)
2) if you misplace the skull the system doesn't correct for that so eventually is not really helping in precision. Plus, if you know where to inject, you probably have already a brain atlas you have consulted before doing surgery (so you don't need a live update with computer screen and software for that, it is just costly).
3) the only electronic device (if you have the money) I would reccommend is the digital display that shows you the movement update on each axis (this saves you time looking for the right coordinates on the metric scales on the frame arms and allows precision and consistency.
so my suggestion would be
from this catalog http://www.bilaney.com/kopf/Kopf%20Catalog%202013.pdf
frame #900 single manipulator, 100 micron (page6)
animal adaptor (page 16) model # 926
cannula holder 1776 P1 (page20) if fits with your cannulas
earbars #857 for rats (adaptable on mice) (page 19)
but you can compare the pricing from Stoelting and decide based on the difference
Hello Livio
Thank you very much for the answer. it will help me in the choice.
kind regards
Hi! Thank you for the detailed answer. Do you know if Kopf glass pipette holder would fit to Stoelting stereotaxic?
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