小鼠动物实验方法系列专题(一)——Morris水迷宫实验在小鼠表型分析中的应用

Morris Water Maze in the Analysis of Mouse Phenotype

本文以C57和129Sv小鼠为例介绍了Morris水迷宫实验的基本原理和实验步骤。该实验是研究鼠类空间学习记忆功能的重要实验:通过连续多日训练鼠类以水池壁的标记物进行定位导航游泳寻找水中隐藏平台的方法检测小鼠的空间学习能力;接着撤除平台,分析小鼠在水迷宫里搜索原隐藏平台的行为来检测小鼠的空间记忆功能。结果发现,两种小鼠均可成功完成实验,C57综合表现优于129Sv小鼠。Morris水迷宫是对小鼠空间学习和记忆功能研究的重要工具。

This article presented the basic protocal of the Morris water maze.MWM is widely used to study spatial learning and memory in the rodents.Animals are put into the pool of opaque water where they are trained to escape to a hidden platform in the navigation of visually distinct cues for 6 days（acquisition）.At the 7 th day,the platform was removed.Animals will search for the missing platform（retention）.A good performance in the learning and memory test was established in both strains.C57 mice showed better performances in the trail.Taken together, MWM plays an important role in the analysis of mouse phenotype.