Cognitive neuroscience searching for cognitive enhancement in the morris water maze. Kotilinek 3, karen hsiao ashe 3,4,5, miranda nicole reed 1,6. For morris water maze mwm test, a platform support is provided with two easily interchangeable platforms 80 and 110 mm that can be located anywhere in the water maze. Oct 21, 2011 the morris water maze is one of the most widely used tasks in behavioral neuroscience for studying the psychological processes and neural mechanisms of spatial learning and memory. The atlantis platform allows a remote control of the availability of the islandplatform in morris water maze mwm studies. Directional responding of c57bl6j mice in the morris. The role of the hippocampus in solving the morris water maze a.
Morris water maze test for learning and memory deficits. Theroleofthehippocampus 75 toastablerepresentationofalocation,whichthendriftsalongthe routesstoredintheca3recurrentconnections. Animals are placed in a pool of water that is colored opaque with powdered. Acetylcholinesterase activity and the levels of oxidative stress biomarkers were also. Prior to assessing the clinical effect of cavns vector administration. Paradoxical effects of learning the morris water maze on. B in experiment 2, the hidden platform was located either 75 or 25 cm from the side wall henceforth referred to as. Animals are placed in a pool of water that is colored opaque with. Protective effects of astragalus kahiricus root extract on ethanol.
Behavioral taskmorris water maze apparatus the apparatus consisted of a circular basin diameter 210 cm, height 40 cm filled with opaque with. Laboratory lighting for morris water maze morris water maze. Morris water maze mwm is by far the most widely used assay for analyzing spatial learning and memory in rodents vorhees and williams, 2006, 2014. The morris water navigation task, also known as the morris water maze should not be confused with water maze, is a behavioral procedure mostly used with rodents. Although the morris water maze mwm was introduced only a few years ago, this technique has gained wide popularity, as the large number of publications in which it is employed, testifies. The first step of performing the test is pretraining. Development of a learning index for performance in the morris water maze michela gallagher, rebecca burwell, and margaret burchinal the morris water maze task was originally designed to assess the rats ability to learn to navigate to a specific.
Morris water maze or radial arm maze, it possesses some advantages which make it a very attractive alternative, especially for the former. Each subject was placed by the tail into the water, immediately facing the perimeter, at one of the cardinal compass points north, south, east or west, and then was allowed a maximal time of 90 s to locate the platform. Using the morris water maze to assess spatial learning and. The experimental apparatus consisted of a black circular plastic pool diameter 100 cm located in the center of the room and. The water was rendered opaque by the addition of white, nontoxic paint. Effect of drugs on learning and memory of mice was evaluated using elevated plus maze and morris water maze. Morris water maze testing of male c57bl6 mice was performed as previously described, with minor modifications to the published protocol to permit use of an automated hvs image tracker system and changes to the layout of the cywhs animal house gliddon and hopwood, 2004.
Tempera paint is added into the water until it becomes opaque. Memoryenhancing activity of palmatine in mice using. How do room and apparatus cues control navigation in the. Water maze performance in young male longevans rats is. Dissociation between performances in water maze and. The morris water maze mwm was described 20 years ago as a device to investigate spatial learning and memory in laboratory rats. Searching for cognitive enhancement in the morris water. Mwm apparatus consists of a large circular pool with150 cm in diameter and 45 cm in height, filled with water to a depth of 30 cm at 281c.
The morris water maze is one of the most widely used methods to assess spatial and learning memory. The morris water maze is a behavioral task to test hippocampaldependent learning and memory. The morris water maze is one of the most widely used behavioral tests for studying spatial. This is the first study showing memory enhancing activity of palmatine in mice. The morris water maze consisted of a cylindrical tub of ivorycoloured perspex polymethyl methacrylate 117 cm diameter. See this link for an illustration 1 of the morris water maze.
How do room and apparatus cues control navigation in the morris. The platform is activated pneumatically through a compressor supplied with the platform. The cuve lays on an aluminum structure, in order to allow a good ventilation and to facilitate a good drain of the liquid from the. The water was made opaque by addition of small quantity of titanium dioxide. Introduction the neurodegenerative pathology of sanfilippo syndrome results in a host of behavioural changes, including developmental delay and cognitive decline as discussed in chapter 1. The water used in each tests was kept at constant temperature 23. The mwm is a relatively simple procedure typically consisting of six day trials, the main advantage being the differentiation between the spatial hiddenplatform and nonspatial. Jul 20, 2011 the morris water maze mwm was first established by neuroscientist richard g. In each of these sessions rats swam a query trial and a confirmatory trial, 30 min apart. The surface of the board contains 426 evenly spaced wells 2. Moreover, the usefulness of this task is quite broad.
It is widely used in behavioral neuroscience to study spatial learning and memory. Many methodological variations of the mwm task have been and are being used by research groups in many different applications. Data are latency s to reach the goal, using identical sequences of start locations. A lowcost morris water maze for undergraduate research. The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of palmatine on memory of swiss young male albino mice. Morris water maze behavioral and functional neuroscience. The role of the hippocampus in solving the morris water maze. Spatial learning is assessed across repeated trials and reference memory is.
Effect of rosuvastatin on learning and memory in scopolamine. The test evaluates spatial memory, and parameters collected include escape latency, thigmotaxis, distance moved, and velocity. The apparatus consisted of a circular pool diameter. Assessing spatial learning and memory in rodents ilar. In the water maze, a platform 15 cm diameter, 35 cm height was located 2 cm below the water surface in one of the four regions. Morris water maze test for learning and memory deficits in. Neural mechanisms supporting this bias in rodents for. The morris water maze mwm was first established by neuroscientist richard g. Dexmedetomidine ameliorates memory impairment in sleep.
Morris water maze acquisition performance in untreated adult long evans rats. The small tank was 122 cm in diameter and the large tank was 210 cm in diameter. Development of a learning index for performance in the morris water maze michela gallagher, rebecca burwell, and margaret burchinal the morris water maze task was originally designed to assess the rats ability to learn to navigate to a specific location in a relatively large spatial environment. Specifically, rats swim in a particular direction to a location relative to poolbased cues, rather than to an absolute location defined by roombased cues. In the meanwhile, it has become one of the most frequently used laboratory tools in behavioral neuroscience. This form of memory is assessed in laboratory animals in many ways, but the dominant form of assessment is the morris water maze mwm. The broad goal of the present study is to examine the relative contributions of information about location and direction to navigation in the morris water task morris, 1981, 1984. The morris water maze is widely used to study spatial memory and learning. Here, we provide a description of the apparatus, its key features, and. It has been widely used in the study of neurobiology, neuropharmacology and neurocognitive disorders in rodent models. This task was developed for use in rats generally good swimmers. The water maze tank is filled with water and equipped with a platform which acts as a means of escape for animals.
The morris water maze mwm is a test of spatial learning for rodents that relies on distal cues to navigate from start locations around the perimeter of an open swimming arena to locate a. Morris in 1981 in order to test hippocampaldependent learning, including acquisition of. Animals are placed in a pool of water that is colored opaque with powdered nonfat milk or nontoxic tempera paint, where. Morris water maze test an overview sciencedirect topics. The morris water maze is a widely used behavioral task in neuroscience for studying spatial learning and memory.
We suggest that the hippocampus plays two roles that allow rodents to. Memoryenhancing activity of palmatine in mice using elevated. The visible platform version of the morris water maze test was used to assess nonspatial learning and to rule out the possibility that the spatial learning deficits detected might actually be a product of deficient escape motivation or impairment of vision andor motor skills. Assessment of spatial learning and memory in the barnes. Recent findings indicate that rats navigate in spatial tasks such as the morris water maze mwm using a local cuebased reference frame rather than a distal cuebased reference frame.
The test evaluates spatial memory, and parameters collected include escape. Applications of the morris water maze in the study of. The morris water maze mwm is a test of spatial learning for rodents that relies on distal cues to navigate from start locations around the perimeter of an open swimming arena to locate a submerged escape platform. Morris water maze the water maze is a perfect apparatus to study reference memory and spatial working memory. Jul 25, 2012 recent findings indicate that rats navigate in spatial tasks such as the morris water maze mwm using a local cuebased reference frame rather than a distal cuebased reference frame. Touretzky computer science department and center for the neural basis of cognition, carnegie mellon university, pittsburgh, pa 1523891, u. The protocol was approved by the institutional animal care and use.
The water maze apparatus was composed of a circular pool 170 cm diameter, 50 cm height. We hypothesized that stress related to morris water maze training may be an important confounder when trying to study the effects of spatial learning in the morris water maze on adult hippocampal neurogenesis in mice and might explain the decrease of measures associated with adult hippocampal neurogenesis induced by morris water maze training. The apparatus is a large circular tank filled with water, divided in four virtual quadrants, one of which contains a submerged platform. Jul 27, 2006 the morris water maze mwm is a test of spatial learning for rodents that relies on distal cues to navigate from start locations around the perimeter of an open swimming arena to locate a. The morris water maze tests impairments in visual shortterm memory and visualspatial abilities in small rodents 69, 70. The water maze tank is manufactured in polypropylene and stands on a support with 4 wheels for easier displacement. Characterisation of the morris water maze and the elevated plus maze 6. Directional responding of c57bl6j mice in the morris water. All animals were given a test session in the morris water maze apparatus.
Searching for cognitive enhancement in the morris water maze. Mwm represent more specific test of spatial memory. Optimization for mouse strain and testing environment daniel s. However, morris water maze studies with mice have principally been. Morris water maze mwm and ymaze test the mwm test was used for the evaluation of spatial learning and memory 40,41. Zebrafish bifurcating t maze the zebrafish bifurcating t maze has been described in the literature as a screening test for the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in zebrafish. In this test the animal is required to swim in a tank of opaque water until it finds a submerged platform that it can mount to escape the water. The purpose of this test is to evaluate spatial memory.
The morris water maze mwm apparatus was the same as previously described. In other tests of visuospatial learning and memory, such as the morris water maze mwm and eightarm radial maze, variations in apparatus design and. The heated circular pool is classically used for conducting spatial memory studies in rodents morris water maze mwm test. On each day, subjects were moved to the procedure room 30 min prior to testing. The morris water maze is the most commonly test used to evaluate cognitive functions related with memory. This document aims to provide the reader information on how to conduct the morris water maze. This test is based on the fact that an animal will try to escape a stressful situation or stimulus, which in this case is a large pool of water. For nearly two decades the morris water maze mwm is a task extensively used and accepted by behavioral physiologist and pharmacologist to assess and compare learning and memory in rodents. The morris water maze mwm is a test of spatial learning for rodents that relies on distal. The water temperature is thermostated between 22 and 32 degrees depending on the environmental room temperature. These models are widely employed for evaluating the effect of drugs on learning and memory 10, 12.
Effect of mpep in morris water maze in adult and old rats. Morris in 1981 in order to test hippocampaldependent learning, including acquisition of spatial memoryand longterm spatial memory 1. The morris water maze mwm is a standard task for assessing hippocampaldependent learning and memory, but the cost of commercial versions of the task may be prohibitive for some undergraduate research projects. Rats were given four trials per day and data represent the mean s. Pdf the morris water maze mwm is a test of spatial learning for rodents that relies on. Hamilton, department of psychology and department of. Morris water maze platform locations and swim analysis zones. In brief, the mwm consisted of a circular pool, 180 cm in diameter and 60 cm in height, with the interior painted white. We propose an ivorycolored cuve in polyethylen, whose diamater may be customized. In mice, performance in this test is highly dependent on genetic background. Typically best tracking results are obtained with constant, shadow free indirect lighting in the range of 400600 lux although the microsoft. Elevated plus maze and morris water maze were employed as behavioral models for evaluation of learning and memory. This complete solution provides a heater, a water circulation pump, a level controller and. Allocentric navigation involves the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and surrounding structures.
This complete solution provides a heater, a water circulation pump, a level controller and an electro valve for filling the pool. The morris water maze mwm is designed to test spatial memory and long term memory by observing and recording escape latency, thigmotaxis duration, distance moved, and velocity during the time spend in the mwm water tank. How to set up and run effectively, how to get the best data and how to avoid pitfalls. Water maze automated atlantis platform harvard apparatus. Water maze automated atlantis platform panlab the atlantis platform allows a remote control of the availability of the islandplatform in morris water maze mwm studies. In the water maze test, the mice are placed in a large circular pool filled with opaque water and are given the task to swim to a platform that can be either visible or hidden. For this purpose, we established a modified morris watermaze navigation task where the escape platform was placed onto various locations at different times of the day.
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