Spatial navigation (water maze) tasks

Since the early part of the 20th century, a variety of experimental procedures have been developed for animals that employ the escape from water as a means to motivate learning and memory processes. ^1-4 Water maze tasks primarily designed to measure spatial learning and recall have become quite useful for evaluating the effects of aging, experimental lesions, and drug effects, especially in rodents. For nearly two decades the Morris Water Maze (MWM) ⁵ has been the task most extensively used and accepted by behavioral physiologists and pharmacologists. A cursory literature search revealed that well over 500 journal articles have been published since 1992 in which this model was used to assess and compare learning and memory in rodents.