Assessment of Cognitive and Sensorimotor Defi cits - Animal Models of Acute Neurological Injuries: Injury and Mechanistic Assessments - page 241

4.6. Day 6: Water
Maze—Cued

1. As with the activity test (see Note 2), record the trial on video
and measure distance moved with a rolling ruler during play-
back if a video tracking system is unavailable. If using a video
tracking system, similar concerns regarding contrast, lighting,
and early setup apply.
2. The general purpose of the cued water maze task is to provide
a baseline against which the much more diffi cult spatial test
performance may be compared.
3. Defi cits in the cued water maze suggest that the animal will also
perform poorly on the spatial trials. A useful approach to this
problem is to remove animals that did not perform in the cued
task from the analysis of spatial data (if sample sizes permit).
Although sample size may be reduced, you will end up with a
subset of animals that can see, swim, and are motivated to escape
the water (all prerequisites for performance on the spatial task).
4. Examples and variations in published literature ( 9, 11, 15 ).

4.7. Day 7: Water
Maze—Spatial

1. Other viable tests of spatial/relational learning and memory
include the Barnes maze and the forced-choice t-maze
2. Individual trials may be categorized according to the presumed
“strategy” and group differences in strategy use can be deter-
mined ( 19, 20 )
3. Examples and variations in published literature ( 9, 11, 15 )

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