When assessing rodent behaviors, learning patterns, and memories, several instruments are available for this. Both the Barnes and water maze are popular choices for analyzing spatial learning in rodents. Still, their popularity has fluctuated over recent years due to their different advantages and drawbacks. This blog post will provide an overview of each maze and outline its benefits.
What is a Barnes Maze?
The Barnes maze is an instrument used to assess learning and memory in rodents to understand more about aging, Alzheimer’s disease, autism spectrum disorder, and more. The maze is a circular table with holes around the circumference, placed in a testing container or room. Under one of the holes is an escape box, and the rest of the holes are open with a drop to the base plate.
Initially, the rodent will be guided towards the escape box hole, but eventually, the rodent will be placed in the middle of the table. It must use visual cues within the environment to learn which hole the escape box is under. The motivation for the rodent to find the escape box is that they want to avoid bright light and open spaces and therefore seek to find a dark space.
The advantages of a Barnes maze include the following:
- Deprivation is not used as motivation
- Less stressful for the rodent
- More cost-effective
- Suitable for rodents that cannot be used in a water maze
What is a Water Maze?
A water maze is a very popular instrument used for assessing rodent behavior. It is also called the Morris water maze (MWM) and follows a simple principle. Rodents are placed into a circular pool of water and must find a hidden escape platform submerged underwater. Rodents need to rely on spatial memory to learn where their escape route is, but without distal cues.
Although the main drawback of the water maze is it places a lot of stress on the rodents, it has many advantages that make it an accurate and reliable test for assessment learning and navigational behaviors. These include:
- Bigger testing area
- Less training and trials required compared to the Barnes maze
- Subjects of all ages can be used
- Quicker learning times due to stressful stimuli
Ultimately, the maze you choose will depend on which method suits your laboratory and any personal preferences. While some analysts prefer to steer away from swimming-based methods, others want to continue with the process they feel most comfortable with.
San Diego Instruments: Barnes and Water Mazes
The San Diego Instruments Barnes maze provides several key benefits to assessing spatial learning in rodents. It is available in rat and mouse models, can be produced in three colors, and is compatible with our ANY-maze video tracking system.
Our water maze is a popular instrument for testing spatial and learning memory and also has a range of advantages such as adjustable or fixed height escape platform models, seamless walls – removing anything that could be mistaken as a cue, and blue or white options. Additionally, the water maze can also be used with ANY-maze.
For more information on our rodent mazes, contact us today, and we can find the right solution for you.