The Morris Water Maze is a widely used task in studies of spatial learning with rodents. Classical performance measures of animals in the Morris Water Maze include the escape latency, and the cumulative distance to the platform. Other methods focus on classifying trajectory patterns to stereotypical classes representing different animal strategies. However, these approaches typically consider t...

A quantitative trait locus (QTL) linked with ability to find a platform in the Morris Water Maze (MWM) was located on chromosome 17 (Nav-5 QTL) using intercross between Dahl S and Dahl R rats. We developed two congenic strains, S.R17A and S.R17B introgressing Dahl R-chromosome 17 segments into Dahl S chromosome 17 region spanning putative Nav-5 QTL. Performance analysis of S.R17A, S.R17B and Da...

The Morris water maze was developed in 1981 and quickly became the standard task for assessing spatial memory and spatial navigation. Twenty years ago, Gallagher, Burwell, and Burchinal (1993) reported new variables and measures, including a spatial learning index, that greatly enhanced the utility of the Morris water maze for assessing subtle differences in performance on the task. The learnin...

This study is undertaken to evaluate cognitive enhancing effect and neuroprotective effect of Loranthus parasiticus. Cognitive enhancing effect of Loranthus parasiticus was investigated on scopolamine-induced amnesia model in Morris water maze test and passive avoidance test. We also examined the neuroprotective effect on glutamate-induced cell death in HT22 cells by MTT assay. These results of...

Aged rats are known to have deficits in spatial learning behavior in the Morris water maze. We have found that aged rats also have deficits in NR2B protein expression and that the protein expression deficit is correlated with their performance in the Morris water maze. To test whether this NR2B deficit was sufficient to account for the behavioral deficit, we used antisense oligonucleotides to s...

The misuse of anabolic androgenic steroids has in several reports been associated with effects resulting in altered behavior. This study used the Morris water maze task to investigate the effect of high doses of the anabolic androgenic steroid nandrolone on spatial learning and memory in male rats. During the experiment, we observed a significantly impaired Morris water maze performance in the ...

We examined anti-amnesic activity of the methanolic extract of Cornus officinalis fruits (COT) and a major constituent, loganin using scopolamine-induced (1 mg/kg body weight, s.c.) amnesic mice with both passive avoidance and the Morris water maze tests. Oral treatment of mice with COT (100 mg/kg body weight) and loganin (1 and 2 mg/kg body weight) significantly mitigated scopolamine-induced m...

In the present study, we examined the ameliorating effects of demethoxycurcumin (DMC) on memory impairment induced by scopolamine using passive avoidance and Morris water maze tests in mice. Moreover, to determine the neurobiological effects underlying the ameliorating effects of the DMC, choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) immunoreactivity was evaluated in mice exposed to scopolamine. Our results...

Although the monoamine oxidase-A (MAOA) gene has been linked to spatial learning and memory in animal models, convincing evidence in humans is lacking. Performance on an ecologically-valid, virtual computer-based equivalent of the Morris Water Maze task was compared between 28 healthy males with the low MAOA transcriptional activity and 41 healthy age- and IQ-matched males with the high MAOA tr...

The Effect of Substance P on Ovariectomy-induced Memory Deficits in Rats Jamie L. Haga The present experiment was designed to test whether pretreatment with substance P would affect ovariectomy-induced memory deficits in rats for retention in the Morris water maze. Adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided to two groups: (1) control (received saline) and (2) experimental group (received sub...