title: Automated recording of rat activity in a 6-arm radial maze for routine evaluation of behaviour in subchronic toxicity studies.
abstract: Using the 6-arm radial maze constructed by Bättig et al. and FitzGerald at el., the spatial locomotor activity of rats can be characterized during five-minute-sessions. Due to the complexity of the maze the rats keep patrolling the gangways without being rewarded for it. The optimal behaviour is reached by visiting all six arms successively until a visit is repeated. Hippocampal lesioned rats, with the according behavioural disturbances, show more reenterings than the control animals. Each arm of the maze is provided with a short blind alley and a long main gangway. After several trials, blind alley entries reach a low and stable level: the rat enters the main arm rather than the blind alley. The decision of entering the main alley depends on the "reference memory", of entering the alleys in the proper sequence, depends on the "working memory". Thus, correlates of long- and short-term memory can be studied. Rats learn to achieve the proper maze behaviour during five successive daily sessions each of a five minute term. By then they have reached a stable behaviour. The monitoring by photobeams of the rat-behaviour is reconstructed by a microprocessor and automatically evaluated.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods*; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects; D008838:Microcomputers; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats / Q000502:physiology; D012984:Software