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Reading list

Reading list: ageing, Alzheimer's disease and injury

Where the water maze meets medicine.

By the watermaze.org editors · Updated

Much water maze research asks what goes wrong with memory: in ageing, in models of Alzheimer's disease, after stress or brain injury. Start here.

  • Barnes (1979). Memory deficits associated with senescence: A neurophysiological and behavioral study in the rat. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 93(1):74-104. doi:10.1037/h0077579
    Barnes compared senescent and mature adult rats on a circular platform task that favours spatial cues, together with recordings of hippocampal synaptic responses. Senescent rats showed poorer spatial memory, and the paper introduced the circular platform task now known as the Barnes maze.
  • Gallagher et al. (1993). Severity of spatial learning impairment in aging: Development of a learning index for performance in the Morris water maze. Behavioral Neuroscience 107(4):618-626. doi:10.1037/0735-7044.107.4.618
    Gallagher, Burwell and Burchinal studied the variability of spatial learning impairment in aged rats in the water maze. They developed a learning index based on proximity to the platform location during probe trials, which is the basis of the Gallagher proximity measures.
  1. Barnes (1979). Memory deficits associated with senescence: A neurophysiological and behavioral study in the rat. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 93(1):74-104. doi:10.1037/h0077579 Classic
    Barnes compared senescent and mature adult rats on a circular platform task that favours spatial cues, together with recordings of hippocampal synaptic responses. Senescent rats showed poorer spatial memory, and the paper introduced the circular platform task now known as the Barnes maze.
  2. Gallagher et al. (1993). Severity of spatial learning impairment in aging: Development of a learning index for performance in the Morris water maze. Behavioral Neuroscience 107(4):618-626. doi:10.1037/0735-7044.107.4.618 Classic
    Gallagher, Burwell and Burchinal studied the variability of spatial learning impairment in aged rats in the water maze. They developed a learning index based on proximity to the platform location during probe trials, which is the basis of the Gallagher proximity measures.
  3. Vorhees & Williams (2006). Morris water maze: procedures for assessing spatial and related forms of learning and memory. Nature Protocols 1(2):848-858. doi:10.1038/nprot.2006.116 Classic
    Vorhees and Williams give a detailed protocol for the Morris water maze, covering acquisition, probe (reference memory), reversal and cued trials. They explain how search patterns and cued trials help separate spatial learning from performance factors such as swimming ability or vision.
  4. Brody & Holtzman (2006). Morris water maze search strategy analysis in PDAPP mice before and after experimental traumatic brain injury. Experimental Neurology 197(2):330-340. doi:10.1016/j.expneurol.2005.10.020 Classic
    Brody and Holtzman classified water maze search strategies in PDAPP mice before and after experimental traumatic brain injury. Injury and genotype shifted mice away from spatial strategies, and differences in which strategies were used accounted for most of the differences in performance between groups.
  5. Coughlan et al. (2018). Spatial navigation deficits — overlooked cognitive marker for preclinical Alzheimer disease?. Nature Reviews Neurology 14(8):496-506. doi:10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x Classic
    Coughlan, Laczó, Hort, Minihane and Hornberger review spatial navigation deficits as an early cognitive marker of Alzheimer's disease. They argue that navigation tests, including virtual reality tasks, may detect preclinical changes earlier than episodic memory tests.
  6. Moghaddam & Bures (1997). Rotation of Water in the Morris Water Maze Interferes with Path Integration Mechanisms of Place Navigation. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 68(3):239-251. doi:10.1006/nlme.1997.3800
  7. Dombeck et al. (2010). Functional imaging of hippocampal place cells at cellular resolution during virtual navigation. Nature Neuroscience 13(11):1433-1440. doi:10.1038/nn.2648
  8. Bromley-Brits et al. (2011). Morris Water Maze Test for Learning and Memory Deficits in Alzheimer's Disease Model Mice. Journal of Visualized Experiments (53). doi:10.3791/2920
  9. Gallagher et al. (2015). Severity of spatial learning impairment in aging: Development of a learning index for performance in the Morris water maze. Behavioral Neuroscience 129(4):540-548. doi:10.1037/bne0000080
  10. Coutrot et al. (2018). Global Determinants of Navigation Ability. Current Biology 28(17):2861-2866.e4. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.009
  11. Curdt et al. (2022). Search strategy analysis of Tg4-42 Alzheimer Mice in the Morris Water Maze reveals early spatial navigation deficits. Scientific Reports 12(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-022-09270-1
  12. Sánchez et al. (2023). Search Strategy Analysis of 5xFAD Alzheimer Mice in the Morris Water Maze Reveals Sex- and Age-Specific Spatial Navigation Deficits. Biomedicines 11(2):599. doi:10.3390/biomedicines11020599

Many ageing and disease-model studies report the Gallagher measures; HVS Image explains how the Gallagher proximity measures are calculated.

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