Barnes Maze (CAT#: STEM-AE-0017-WXH)

Introduction

The Barnes maze is a model invented by American scholar Carol ABarnes in 1979 to test the spatial memory of animals. Similar to the water maze and the radial arm maze, the Barnes maze was established using the characteristics of rodents that avoid light and love to explore. Animals were augmented by fleeing from above a lighted, open platform to a dark, cramped enclosure below the platform. This bin is called the target bin. After training, the animals learn and memorize the location of the target box. The model is less stressful for the animals, neither requiring fasting like the radial arm maze nor being as stressful as the water maze. Therefore, it is more commonly used in memory research. Especially useful for stress-related memory studies and behavioral phenotype studies in knockout mice.