We want to use the Morris maze test for alzheimer's disease. We are using R-flurbiprofen as anti-alzheimer drug. But in papers they have used transgenic mice for the same model.
In another set of papers authors reported the use of morris maze test only with Acetylcholinesterase drugs (inducer was scopolamine).
Some other reports mentioned the use of AlCl3 to induce metal induced AD in rats.
We want to know which inducer we should use for R-flurbiprofen (M. Water maze test) or can we use this model per se?
Waiting for kind response.
I have some difficulties to understand your question. Do you ask what to use for inducing AD and then restore it with R-flurbiprofen or do you ask how to use Morris water maze? Whatever maze is chosen is good for this purpose.
The Morris water maze like other mazes can be used for different purposes. This apparatus is one of the most widely used tasks in behavioral neuroscience for studying the psychological processes and neural mechanisms of spatial learning and memory. Rats or mice are placed in a large circular pool of water and required to escape from water onto a hidden platform whose location can normally be identified only using spatial memory . There are no local cues indicating where the platform is located. Conceptually, the task derives from place cells that are neurons in the hippocampus which identify or represent points in space in an environment (O'Keefe, 1976).
Place navigation in the watermaze is often used as a general assay of cognitive function (Brandeis et al., 1989), for example for testing the impact of various disturbances of the nervous system (e.g. animal models of stroke (Nunn et al., 1994), aging (Gallagher and Rapp, 1997), neurodegenerative disease (Hsiao et al., 1996), or the potential impact of novel therapeutic drugs (D'Hooge and De Deyn, 2001). The task has also inspired computational neuroscientists and roboticists interested in navigation (Krichmar et al., 2005).
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Morris_water_maze
Béatrice is completely right. I only would add that spatial memory is a very complex cognitive function and rats could use different strategies to solve the task. Even if you take out the hippocampus animals can solve the task using alternative strategies. You should take it into account to demonstrate that your drug is affecting performance ;-)
I recommend the use of Radial Arm Water maze. It is a more robust test than morris water maze, and you have the ability to make it more difficult by adding arms to the maze. I have used 6 arm maze for young and aging rats with inter block ( block of 4 trials, 2 blocks a day) resting time of 30 min and the uninjured animals ( sham control) develop excellent learning acquisition scores. Then you do a probe trial including reversal trials or missing platform paradigm.
Kindly feel free to take a look at my most recent publication with radial arm water maze for stroke and TBI animals.
thanks i hope it help.
Thanks for the response. i will certainly go through your publication.
With Regrads
Swami
Morris water is used for evaluation of spatial, working and reference memory, it is not drug specific, you can use it for evaluating memory in your model........
Further for induction of memory dysfunction there are various models you can opt for the best suitable model available to you and then measure there memory impairment using Morris water maze and further effect of your drug can can be evaluated using control mice...............
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