How to section whole brain hemispheres with a vibratome

IMPORTANT UPDATE 7-29-2025: If you are having difficulty in getting good-quality tissue sections while using a vibratome, I recommend seeing my newer video here:    • Vibratome Troubleshooting - Getting better...   . In particular, I strongly recommend reading my pinned comment on that video, about how your choice of blade type can make a significant impact on tissue quality / consistency. You can find the text protocol that accompanies this video on my website: https://sites.google.com/view/kru-neu... This video gives a demonstration for sectioning rat (or mouse) brain hemispheres in an orderly and expedient way. I've also included a decent amount of discussion on small tips and rationale behind these methods. Captions are provided via auto-transcribing; they won't be perfect but hopefully they are helpful. Thanks to Sabin Yang and Alex Camarillo for helping with filming. Click to skip to these points: 0:00 - Intro 0:43 - Checklist of tasks to do 2:48 - Explanation of hemisecting 13:28 - Video of hemisecting (method 1) 17:28 - Video of hemisecting (method 2) 21:09 - Videos of the embedding process 26:12 - Video of gluing brain chunks onto vibratome chuck 28:12 - Video of vibratome setup 33:58 - Explanation of sectioning without solution 39:25 - Explanation of series sectioning 46:48 - Video of series sectioning 48:27 - Storing unfinished, embedded tissue