Morris water maze

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The Morris water maze ( engl. Morris water maze ) is an experimental apparatus for behavioral experiments with rodents .

Schematic drawing of the navigation test in the Morris water maze for rats. Healthy rats learn very quickly to use the visual landmark to find the hidden platform after the animal has been reinserted (N, E, S, W). Dimensions shown may differ.

It consists of a round basin that is filled with cloudy water and marked on the side with pronounced markings, so-called external cues. In the experiment itself, the animals are trained over several days to independently find an invisible platform below the surface of the water and to remember its spatial position. The experiment is therefore primarily aimed at investigating the spatial learning of animals and the influences on it.

The advantage of the paradigm over conventional simple labyrinths in animal experiments is that there are no local landmarks, only global ones, and that the task has a high motivational factor due to the animals' flight behavior.

The designation labyrinth is incorrect in the strict sense, since by definition it has delimitable paths, which is not the case in the Morris water labyrinth.

The Morris water maze is often transferred to human experiments as virtual reality . It is named after the British neuroscientist Richard G. Morris who developed it around 1979.

literature

  • R. Morris: Developments of a water-maze procedure for studying spatial learning in the rat. In: Journal of neuroscience methods. Volume 11, Number 1, May 1984, ISSN  0165-0270 , pp. 47-60. PMID 6471907

Individual evidence

  1. ^ F. Schenk: The Morris water maze (is not a maze ). In: N. Foreman, R. Gillett (Eds.): A Handbook of Spatial Research Paradigms and Methodologies. Vol 2: Clinical and Comparative Studies. Psychology Press, Hove, East Sussex, UK 1998, pp. 145-188.
  2. ^ Richard GM Morris: Spatial localization does not require the presence of local cues. In: Learning and Motivation. 12, 1981, p. 239, doi: 10.1016 / 0023-9690 (81) 90020-5 .

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