Rat vagus nerve stained with Masson's trichrome

Study Purpose: To collect samples of rat vagus nerves at the cervical and subdiaphragmatic level and provide Masson’s trichrome-stained cross sections

Data Collection: We collected cervical and subdiaphragmatic vagus nerve samples from adult rats perfused with paraformaldehyde and placed them in 4% PFA. Following paraffin embedding, we stained cross sections with Masson’s trichrome and captured 20x images for 9 left cervical, 9 right cervical, 9 anterior subdiaphragmatic, and 9 posterior subdiaphragmatic rat vagus nerve samples.

Primary Conclusion: None stated

Curator's Notes

Experimental Design: Cervical and/or subdiphragmatic vagus nerves were sampled from adult paraformadehyde-perfused rats (male and female), and each sample underwent paraffin embedding, transverse sectioning, and Masson’s trichrome staining. The complete carotid sheath was sampled to capture the cervical vagus nerve; the oesophagus was sampled to capture the attached subdiaphragmatic vagus nerves.

Completeness: This dataset is part of a larger study "Quantified vagus nerve morphology across species".

Subjects & Samples: Adult male (n=5) and female (n=5) Sprague-Dawley rats were used for this study, 65 - 268 days old. The dataset contains 9 left cervical rat vagus nerve samples, 9 right cervical rat vagus nerve samples, and 9 subdiaphragmatic rat esophageal samples, which each include both the anterior and posterior vagus nerve cross sections.

Primary vs derivative data: Data in the primary and derived files are divided by subject identification, then sample number (listed in sample file). The primary folder contains nd2 and TIFF images. Image data (.jp2) was derived from primary images (.nd2) in Primary folder. Images were converted with 20:1 compression to .jp2 by MBF Bioscience for web streaming and visualization on the SPARC Data Portal.

Important Notes: (1) Fiji software can be used to open nd2 files (https://imagej.net/Fiji/Downloads) > Open Fiji > Plugins (top of the screen) > Bio-Formats > Bio-Formats Importer > Select the file.