Cognitive Tests – Barnes Maze Test

The Barnes Maze is a circular platform with an array of holes spaced evenly around its perimeter. One of the holes leads to an escape box, a safe hiding place for the rodent. The test capitalizes on the animal’s natural aversion to open spaces and preference for secure environments, motivating it to locate the escape box using spatial cues. The maze is surrounded by visual cues, such as geometric patterns or objects, placed on walls or stands. Rodents learn to use these cues to navigate and remember the location of the escape box over repeated trials.

Following the initial spatial memory acquisition, a reversal paradigm can be used to measure the acquisition of new memory. Administration of several cytotoxic chemotherapies was shown to lead to impaired performance in the Barnes Maze (Seigers et al. 2015). The Stxbp1 epileptic encephalopathy mouse model is impaired in the reversal learning protocol of this task (Kovacevic et al. 2018).