Small Animal Behavior Core Laboratory
Services
Radial Arm Maze

Description:
In the Radial Arm Maze task, a rodent is placed in the center of a maze. At
the end of each arm are food pellets. To successfully complete the task,
the rodent must enter each arm and retrieve the food pellets and use spatial
cues in the room to remember which arms of the maze it has previously
explored to avoid re-entering the same arms. Both 8- and 12- arm versions
of the task are used. A computer operated 8-arm radial maze routinely
used at the core facility is depicted above.
Purpose:
The radial arm maze task is used to assess spatial working memory and
reference memory. |