Rodents falling off the Barnes Maze

Many users of Barnes Maze find that there are problems with the animals either falling through the holes or off the edge, particularly with mice. The trick is quite simple - capping the holes. The design of the caps, is, however crucial as the animals must not be able to identify the escape hole from the other holes at a distance. The HVS Image Barnes Maze capping system is a very effective way of overcoming this problem.

Deeper analysis for Barnes Maze

The Circular Mazes option in HVS Image 2016 gives the researcher much more detailed and flexible analysis than was previously available.

In addition to the traditional measures of Latency to Escape Hole, Path length and Hole Approaches, the circular mazes option gives a large range of measures and analyses relevant to learning and memory studies.

Researchers can choose which measures and analyses to include in their results files. Some of those available are:

• Heading angle (angle of initial path relative to the ideal path toward the escape hole)
• Number of approaches to target hole
• Number of approaches to each hole
• Percentage time in the vicinity of target hole
• Percentage time in the vicinity of each hole
• Percentage time in target quad
• Percentage path in each quad
• Percentage time exploring the outer part of the platform (i.e. the circle of holes vs the interior of the platform)
• Percentage path exploring the outer part of the platform (i.e. the circle of holes vs the interior of the platform)
• Latency to the vicinity of each hole
• Path ratio (actual path / direct path)

Other more complex measures and analyses are also available for the researcher to use if of interest.

In addition trials can be broken down into time bins or slices so as to reveal significant behaviors that are specific to certain parts of the trial. For example this may reveal an animal investigating the expected escape hole at the beginning of a probe test and then moving on to explore elsewhere, which would not be apparent from the more commonly used measures such as percentage time in target quad or number of approaches to target hole.

Publication quality path plots can be saved both for entire trials and for slices of trials.

Series of trials can be run and analyzed automatically, with results in .csv format for easy import to Excel or other packages if required.

All New Barnes Maze Testing and Analysis Software to be released by HVS Image at SFN 2013

All New Barnes Maze Testing and Analysis Software to be released by HVS Image at SFN 2013.

The HVS Image 2014 system to be released at Society for Neuroscience this coming Saturday will feature a suite of all new Barnes Maze Testing and Analysis Software.

Over 300 publications cite the use of HVS Image and Barnes Maze and now the HVS Image 2014 makes it easier and more powerful.

Tracking Research: Protective effect of salicylic acid on Hg0 intoxication in mice

Tracking Research: Protective effect of salicylic acid on Hg0 intoxication in mice
C Ma, D Xie, L Huang, L Sun, Q Xu, G Li

Elemental mercury (Hg0) is a hazardous metal with significant human exposure through diverse sources. In this study, the role of salicylic acid (SA) was assessed against Hg0-induced injury in mice, with the aim of screening alternative clinical drugs to prevent or treat Hg0 poisoning. An exposure to Hg0 (1.0 mg/m3 in a glass box) for 2 h per day for successive 15 d significantly increased Hg accumulation in mouse brain and lung, inhibited the animal growth and altered the neurobehavior such as impairing the spatial learning and memory in the Barnes maze test. However, although oral SA (5.5 mg/kg body weight) during the Hg0 exposure did not reduce the Hg levels in these organs, it effectively counteracted the Hg0-induced growth inhibition, and improved the behavioral performance, accompanied by a series of ameliorations in the antioxidative defense and anti-inflammatory response. For instance, when compared with control, Hg0-inhaled animals had significant decreases in the activities of superoxide dismutase and peroxidase, and in the levels of reduced form of glutathione and the ratio to its oxidized form, concomitantly with a high accumulation of hydrogen peroxide and malondialdehyde in the brain and lung. However, these values in Hg0 + SA-exposed animals were comparable with the basal levels in control. Likewise, interleukin-6 in the brain and lung of Hg0-exposed animals were dramatically elevated, whereas it was maintained to the basal level in Hg0 + SA-exposed animals. These data suggested that application of SA could protect mice against Hg0-induced injury.


Read More:  to Hg 0 (1.0 mg/m 3 in a glass box) for 2 h per day for successive 15 d significantly
increased Hg accumulation in mouse brain and lung, inhibited the animal growth and altered
the neurobehavior such as impairing the spatial learning and memory in the Barnes maze ...

Tracking Research: Hyperdynamic Microtubules, Cognitive Deficits, and Pathology Are Improved in Tau Transgenic Mice with Low Doses of the Microtubule-Stabilizing Agent BMS-241027Neuroscience Drug Discovery, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Wallingford, Connecticut 06492,

Hyperdynamic Microtubules, Cognitive Deficits, and Pathology Are Improved in Tau Transgenic Mice with Low Doses of the Microtubule-Stabilizing Agent BMS-241027

Donna M. Barten, Patrizia Fanara, Cathy Andorfer, Nina Hoque, P. Y. Anne Wong, Kristofor H. Husted2, Gregory W. Cadelina, Lynn B. DeCarr1, Ling Yang, Victoria Liu, Chancy Fessler, Joan Protassio, Timothy Riff, Holly Turner, Christopher G. Janus, Sethu Sankaranarayanan, Craig Polson, Jere E. Meredith, Gemma Gray, Amanda Hanna, Richard E. Olson, Soong-Hoon Kim, Gregory D. Vite, Francis Y. Lee, and Charles F. Albright

Abstract

Tau is a microtubule (MT)-stabilizing protein that is altered in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other tauopathies. It is hypothesized that the hyperphosphorylated, conformationally altered, and multimeric forms of tau lead to a disruption of MT stability; however, direct evidence is lacking in vivo. In this study, an in vivo stable isotope-mass spectrometric technique was used to measure the turnover, or dynamicity, of MTs in brains of living animals. We demonstrated an age-dependent increase in MT dynamics in two different tau transgenic mouse models, 3xTg and rTg4510. MT hyperdynamicity was dependent on tau expression, since a reduction of transgene expression with doxycycline reversed the MT changes. Treatment of rTg4510 mice with the epothilone, BMS-241027, also restored MT dynamics to baseline levels. In addition, MT stabilization with BMS-241027 had beneficial effects on Morris water maze deficits, tau pathology, and neurodegeneration. Interestingly, pathological and functional benefits of BMS-241027 were observed at doses that only partially reversed MT hyperdynamicity. Together, these data suggest that tau-mediated loss of MT stability may contribute to disease progression and that very low doses of BMS-241027 may be useful in the treatment of AD and other tauopathies.
 Tracking with HVS Image Barnes Maze

Tracking Research: Aging in the cerebellum and hippocampus and associated behaviors over the adult life span of CB6F1 mice

Tracking Research: Aging in the cerebellum and hippocampus and associated behaviors over the adult life span of CB6F1 mice

JA Kennard, KL Brown, DS Woodruff-Pak

Abstract

In the present study we examined the effects of normal aging in the hippocampus and cerebellum, as well as behaviors associated with these substrates. A total of 67 CB6F1 hybrid mice were tested at one of five ages (4, 8, 12, 18 or 25 months) on the context pre-exposure facilitation effect (CPFE) modification of fear conditioning, rotorod, Barnes maze, acoustic startle, Morris water maze (MWM) and 500 ms trace eyeblink classical conditioning (EBCC). Behavioral tasks were chosen to increase the ability to detect age-related changes in learning, as trace EBCC is considered a more difficult paradigm (compared to delay EBCC) and the CPFE has been found to be more sensitive to hippocampus insults than standard contextual fear conditioning. To assess the effects of age on the brain, hippocampus volume was calculated and unbiased stereology was used to estimate the number of Purkinje neurons in the cerebellar cortex. A significant, age-related loss of Purkinje neurons was found—beginning at 12 months of age—and hippocampus volume remained stable over the adult life span. Age-related impairment was found, beginning at 12–18 months in the rotorod, and mice with fewer Purkinje neurons showed greater impairment in this task. CB6F1 mice retained auditory acuity across the life span and mice aged 25 months showed significant age-related impairment in the EBCC task; however, deficits were not associated with the loss of Purkinje neurons. Although the CPFE task is considered more sensitive to hippocampus insult, no age-related impairment was found. Spatial memory retention was impaired in the Barnes maze at 25 months, but no significant deficits were seen in the MWM. These results support the finding of differential aging in the hippocampus and cerebellum.

Trials ended if the mouse did not fall after 60 seconds, at which point a latency score
of 60 was given. Barnes Maze. Apparatus. ... Barnes Maze. Primary latency and primary distance
were evaluated with 5 (Age) x 4 (Training Day) Mixed Model ANOVAs. ...

Tracking Research: TP O'Leary, RE Brown - … Genetics of the Mouse: Volume 1

Tracking Research: TP O'Leary, RE Brown - … Genetics of the Mouse: Volume 1, …, 2013 - books.google.com

In this chapter, we review the use of six different mazes for the study of strain
differences in learning and memory in mice: the Barnes maze, the holeboard, the T-maze, the
Y-maze, the Lashley type III, and Hebb-Williams mazes . ...