WATER VERSION OF THE RADIAL-ARM MAZE - LEARNING IN 3 INBRED STRAINS OF MICE

The conventional land radial-arm maze has several disadvantages, inclu ding requiring a complicated automated apparatus, the elimination of o dors as cues, and the use of food deprivation. We have created a water version of the maze, based on the principles of the land version, whi ch maintains the advantages and excludes some of the disadvantages. In our maze, BXSB and C57BL/6 mice significantly reduced the number of w orking and reference memory errors committed over sessions, while NZB mice did not. For each strain, as the working memory 'load' increased during a session, the number of errors increased. However, with practi ce the BXSB and C57BL/6 strains were able to handle this memory load m ore effectively. Mice were able to learn the maze without extensive ad aptation, training, or testing and they did not exhibit 'chaining'. Th is maze can also be considered to be an example of a water win-shift t ask that mice can easily learn. Therefore, the water version of the ra dial-arm maze can be a simple and useful tool for studying rodent lear ning and memory. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.