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Reading list

Reading list: related tests

The water maze's cousins.

By the watermaze.org editors · Updated

The original papers behind the related tests on this site.

  • 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.
  • Olton & Samuelson (1976). Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 2(2):97-116. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.2.2.97
    Olton and Samuelson introduced the radial arm maze, showing that rats efficiently avoid revisiting arms they have already entered. The work established the radial maze as a test of spatial working memory.
  • Walf & Frye (2007). The use of the elevated plus maze as an assay of anxiety-related behavior in rodents. Nature Protocols 2(2):322-328. doi:10.1038/nprot.2007.44
    Walf and Frye give a protocol for the elevated plus maze as an assay of anxiety-related behaviour in rodents. They describe the apparatus, procedure, measures and factors that influence the results.
  • Spooner et al. (1994). The Atlantis platform: a new design and further developments of Buresova's on-demand platform for the water maze. Learning & Memory 1(3):203-211. doi:10.1101/lm.1.3.203
  1. Olton & Samuelson (1976). Remembrance of places passed: Spatial memory in rats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 2(2):97-116. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.2.2.97 Classic
    Olton and Samuelson introduced the radial arm maze, showing that rats efficiently avoid revisiting arms they have already entered. The work established the radial maze as a test of spatial working memory.
  2. 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.
  3. Pellow et al. (1985). Validation of open : closed arm entries in an elevated plus-maze as a measure of anxiety in the rat. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 14(3):149-167. doi:10.1016/0165-0270(85)90031-7 Classic
    Pellow, Chopin, File and Briley validated the elevated plus maze for rats, showing that the proportion of open-arm entries and time on open arms respond to anxiolytic and anxiogenic treatments. It is a standard reference for the elevated plus maze as a measure of anxiety.
  4. Treit & Fundytus (1988). Thigmotaxis as a test for anxiolytic activity in rats. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 31(4):959-962. doi:10.1016/0091-3057(88)90413-3 Classic
    Treit and Fundytus showed that rats tested in an open field spend most of their time near the walls (thigmotaxis), and that anxiolytic drugs reduce this tendency. They proposed thigmotaxis as a simple test for anxiolytic activity.
  5. Simon et al. (1994). Thigmotaxis as an index of anxiety in mice. Influence of dopaminergic transmissions. Behavioural Brain Research 61(1):59-64. doi:10.1016/0166-4328(94)90008-6 Classic
    Simon, Dupuis and Costentin proposed the degree of thigmotaxis (staying close to the walls) during early open-field exploration as an index of anxiety in mice. They validated it with anxiogenic and anxiolytic drugs and examined the role of dopaminergic transmission.
  6. Prut & Belzung (2003). The open field as a paradigm to measure the effects of drugs on anxiety-like behaviors: a review. European Journal of Pharmacology 463(1-3):3-33. doi:10.1016/s0014-2999(03)01272-x Classic
    Prut and Belzung review the use of the open field to measure the effects of drugs on anxiety-like behaviour in rodents. They summarise which classes of drugs are detected by the test and its limitations.
  7. Walf & Frye (2007). The use of the elevated plus maze as an assay of anxiety-related behavior in rodents. Nature Protocols 2(2):322-328. doi:10.1038/nprot.2007.44 Classic
    Walf and Frye give a protocol for the elevated plus maze as an assay of anxiety-related behaviour in rodents. They describe the apparatus, procedure, measures and factors that influence the results.
  8. Floresco et al. (1997). Selective Roles for Hippocampal, Prefrontal Cortical, and Ventral Striatal Circuits in Radial-Arm Maze Tasks With or Without a Delay. The Journal of Neuroscience 17(5):1880-1890. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.17-05-01880.1997
  9. Sunyer et al. (2007). Barnes maze, a useful task to assess spatial reference memory in the mice. Protocol Exchange . doi:10.1038/nprot.2007.390
  10. Rosenfeld & Ferguson (2014). Barnes Maze Testing Strategies with Small and Large Rodent Models. Journal of Visualized Experiments (84). doi:10.3791/51194
  11. Seibenhener & Wooten (2015). Use of the Open Field Maze to Measure Locomotor and Anxiety-like Behavior in Mice. Journal of Visualized Experiments (96). doi:10.3791/52434
  12. Bertolli et al. (2026). Renovating the Barnes maze for mouse models of dementia with STARR FIELD: A 4-day protocol for learning rate, retention, and cognitive flexibility. Methods 251:64-82. doi:10.1016/j.ymeth.2026.04.004

For tracking in these related tests, see HVS Image for the Barnes maze and novel object recognition.

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