title: Validation of a single-day Morris Water Maze procedure used to assess cognitive deficits associated with brain damage.
abstract: This experiment was designed to validate a single-day Morris Water Maze procedure used to assess cognitive functioning in rats. Separate groups of randomly assigned rats received either bilateral or unilateral fimbria fornix transections, bilateral or unilateral cortical ablations, or a sham surgical control procedure. Subjects were tested 7 days postoperatively with a modified version of the Morris Water Maze procedure that requires only a single day of training. The results indicated that bilateral fimbria fornix transections severely disrupted acquisition. Unilateral fimbria fornix transections and bilateral and unilateral cortical lesions disrupted acquisition less severely but impaired subsequent test performance. In general, unilateral lesions of both types produced less severe deficits than bilateral lesions. The practical and analytical advantages of the single-day procedure are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40515-0044, USA.
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Kraemer
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Baldwin
authors.forename: S W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Scheff
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000293:injuries / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000293:injuries / Q000473:pathology