Souris déposée dans un labyrinthe de Barnes pour un test de mémoire spatiale complexe

Mouse being placed in a Barnes maze in order to test its spatial memory. The maze has 20 holes, with only one leading to a refuge. The mouse is first placed in the middle of the maze using a beaker. It will quickly try to shelter due to its aversion to the brightly lit environment. The mouse completes several sessions to test its capacity to find the refuge identified the first time again. After the learning phase, the position of the exit hole may be changed to evaluate the animal’s capacity to take on board a change to the rule. This makes it possible to identify any problems with behavioural flexibility. Overall, these successive tests can be used to study the learning capacities and spatial memory of animals, and highlight potential problems with these processes among different mouse lines, including in Alzheimer’s disease models.