Water Maze Tasks in Mice: Special Reference to Alzheimer’s Transgenic Mice

Excerpt

Water maze tasks have been used for over a quarter century in testing rodent spatial navigation memory [1]. Although initially developed for rats, they have also been useful in evaluating memory in mice, often using scaled down pool sizes. The major advantage of the water maze tasks over dry mazes is increased motivation to escape, and hence more rapid performance within the maze. Typical trials in water mazes are limited to 60 sec, while dry maze trials often last much longer. This permits higher throughput and increased efficiency when large numbers of animals require evaluation.