Figure 3

Relationship between basal respiration and cortical punch diameter. (A) Picture of a rat coronal tissue section (220 µm in thickness) showing the relative sizes of the cortical tissue punches excised to determine optimal punch diameter for OCR measures to be within the recommended range (20–200 pmol/min). Please note, for evaluation of appropriate punch size, punches were taken from the same anatomical location across brain sections and across animals. (B) Box (25th and 75th percentile) and whisker (5th and 95th percentile) plots showing the basal OCR for the different sizes of punches. (C) OCR curves showing the response of various punch diameters to mitochondrial inhibitors/FCCP. Recommended range for OCR is indicated by the shaded area. Data are presented as mean ±   SEM. (D) Box (25th and 75th percentile) and whisker (5th and 95th percentile) plots showing the relationship between number of replicates and recorded basal OCR for 0.5 mm diameter cortical tissue punches.