Morris Water Maze movie of a rat, 1st trial

Morris Water Maze movie of a rat that doesn't find the platform (it is its first training session). The rat is detected by the video tracking system (Noldus Ethovision) and shown in red. The path following the rat is also in red. There are four quadrants: North, South, East and West. They are separated by "virtual" blue lines (i.e. drawn by the tracking system). The platform is located in the North quadrant and is represented by a blue circle.

You can use this video provided you leave the start and end notice. Original video is at http://www.poirrier.be/~jean-etienne/presentations/mwm-videos/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Morris
• water
• maze
• neuroscience
• behaviour
• behavior
• learning
• spatial
• memory
• ULg
• CRC

[gavinplaysbass]

That's a fascinating tracking system you've got. We just use a webcam in our lab... it looks like yours is actually detecting heat, am i correct?

[jepoirrier]

@gavinplaysbass Unfortunately mine was not detecting heat, "just" contrast (hence the white rat and the black water). The system was a Noldus Ethovision 3. Since then Noldus developed a new version of the Ethovision: XT.

[jepoirrier]

Hi SchroedingerWatcher,

The point of this test is to assess the learning and memory consolidation process. It's a very powerful test and, at the same time, not really stressful for rats as they like to swim. So the rat really wants to get out of the water but it has to learn that there is a hidden platform somewhere hidden below the water surface (the circle on top of the video) ...

[ShroedingerWatcher]

The video clearly shows the rat want s out of the water.

What was the point of this test?