Water maze

The Morris (1984) water maze is a large circular glass tank (1.5m diameter) filled with opaque (e.g. dye-treated) water to a depth of some 50 cm. A small platform, large enough to take the rat, is placed in the water with its top about 1.5 cm below the surface, so it cannot be seen. When placed in the water the rat finds and escapes to the platform, the position of which is apparently learnt by reference to peripheral visual markers. Memory is demonstrated by the rat s ability to swim to the platform when put back into the water at various points and measured by the time or the length of path taken to do so (Fig. 18.3). 

Morris, RGM (1984) Development of a water-maze procedure for studying spatial learning in the rat. J. Neurosci. Meth. 11 47-60. 

Jett DA, Kuhlmann AC, Farmer SJ, et al. 1997. Age-dependent effects of developmental lead exposure on performance in the Morris water maze. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 57(l-2) 271-279. 

Dere, E., Souza-Silva, M. A., Topic, B., Spieler, R. E., Haas, H. L. and Huston, J. P. Histidine-decarboxylase knockout mice show deficient nonreinforced episodic object memory, improved negatively reinforced water-maze performance, and increased neo- and ventro-striatal dopamine turnover. Learn. Mem. 10 510-519, 2003. 

Initial evidence linking Hebb s coincidence detection rule to learning and memory. As the unique receptor in the brain with the coincidence-detection property, the NMDA receptor is an ideal candidate to gate the formation of memory at the synaptic level. Early observations demonstrated that infusion of NMDA receptor blockers into brain ventricles resulted in animals poor performance in the hidden-platform water maze. At first, this seemed to provide evidence for the role of hippocampal LTP in memory formation. Unfortunately, careful analyses revealed that poor performances in the water maze tests... 

Passive avoidance task Morris water maze radial maze operant behavior tasks... 

An acute dose of lobeline impairs attention in one animal model, but not as much as mecamylamine (Turchi et al. 1995). Lobeline improves memory when administered after a passive avoidance paradigm (Decker et al. 1993). Pretreatment with lobeline improves performance in rats with septal lesions on a spatial discrimination water maze. Lobeline is about one-tenth as potent as nicotine in the passive avoidance memory task, but equivalent to nicotine in the water maze. 

Kanit L, Taskiran D, Furedy JJ, Kulali B, McDonald R, Pogun S. (1998). Nicotine interacts with sex in affecting rat choice between "look-out" and "navigational" cognitive styles in the Morris water maze place learning task. Brain Res Bull. 46(5) 441-45. 

Socci DJ, Sanberg PR, Arendash GW. (1995). Nicotine enhances Morris water maze performance of young and aged rats. Neurobiol Aging. 16(5) 857-60. 

Hodges H (1996) Maze procedures the radial-arm and water maze compared. Cogn Brain Res 3 167-181... 

Memory retention impairment. Acetone/ water extract of the rhizome, administered intragastrically to male rats at a dose of 1 mg/ kg, was inactive vs inhibitory avoidance conditioning and water maze perform-ance °° . ... 

Bjorklund, M., Sirvio, J., Riekkinen, M., Sallinen, J., Scheinin, M., and Riekkinen, P., Jr. (2000) Overexpression of ajc-adrenoceptors impairs water maze navigation. Neuroscience 95 481 87. Bjorklund, M., Sirvio, J., Sallinen, J., Scheinin, M., Kobilka, B.K., and Riekkinen, P., Jr. (1999) ajo-Adrenoceptor overexpression disrupts execution of spatial and non-spatial search patterns. Neuroscience 88 1187-1198. 

Affect water maze spatial performance (while exaggerating the effects of scopolamine] [Beiko et al. 1997]... 

In the fimbria/fornix or cingulate bundle, selectively reduced the concentration of serotonin in the rat hippocampus but had no effect on spatial memory in the Morris water maze or radial arm maze. However, the lesion... 

Quartermain et al. 1993, 1994 Rowan et al. 1990 Winter and Petti 1987). Also, low doses of gepirone and atropine, which individually fail to modify rat performance in a spatial task, when administered together impair performance [Barrett and Rowan 1990]. Similarly, the selection of a single dose of MDL 73,005EF that did not impair the acquisition or recall of a task in the Morris water maze enhanced the deficits caused by gepirone or atropine [Barrett and Rowan 1992]. 

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