Every viral tracing or optogenetics experiment needs to verify that the injection hit the intended target and characterize its spread. Injection site mapping:
- Confirms the injection center is within the target structure
- Quantifies spread into neighboring regions (potential off-target effects)
- Enables exclusion of animals with mistargeted injections
- Correlates injection volume with downstream labeling efficiency
Once sections are registered to an atlas, the injection site boundary can be assigned to anatomical regions instead of being judged by eye. Meca Scientific states that PanoBrain matches brain slices to the Allen Brain Atlas automatically.