Maze Basics
How to Calibrate and Measure Electrical Current
June 16, 2023
For many of the automated products Maze Engineers offers, shock delivery is required. Shocks are applied using shock grids. To measure the shock current, you…
Guidelines to Rodent Enclosures and Cages
April 6, 2023
The guidelines for biomedical research involving rodents in the USA are set by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of Laboratory Animal…
Grip Strength Tests in Rodents
January 9, 2023
The grip strength test is performed by using the grip strength apparatus. It measures the motor functions of rodents when they grasp a specially designed pull bar assembly with a peak amount of force. The peak force applied is displayed on a digital display with precision force gauges. You can either manually record values or use the included software to do so automatically.
Maze Basics: Sleep Fragmentation Chambers
May 13, 2022
Sleep is essential for our body and mind to recharge, keeping the body healthy and alleviating diseases. Having a good night's sleep increases our energy and…
Looking to dive deeper into the mazes behind behavioral research? Browse through our easy-to-read introductory articles on the various mazes used for research. You’ll learn the basics behind the featured maze apparatus, what it tests, and the measurements it’s designed to acquire.
You may also want to check out these related Maze Engineers content collections for more:
- Strain Library: Browse through all the various mouse strains used in research and learn what is known about their genetics and how they are used in pharmaceutical studies.
- Mouse Ethogram: A comprehensive resource that lists detailed information profiling all known mouse behaviors, including information on pharmaceutical studies, disease models, and different mouse strains that display this behavior.
- Nutrition and Drugs: Browse through our growing catalog of nutrition and drugs where we explore the relationship between them and behavior. We also cover how different mazes are used to assess behavioral changes that occur as a result of nutrition or drug treatment.
Zero Maze - What it is, and What it Does
February 10, 2016
More versatile, and less error-prone than the Elevated Plus Maze, the Zero Maze is nonetheless one of the simplest mazes out there. It's built to exploit just…
EthoVisionXT + the Open Field Test
January 14, 2016
Imagine you are dropped in the center of a wide open field. Would you explore the entire area? Or hunker down around the edges, fearing predators and other…
The Rotarod Test (For Mice)
November 5, 2015
Ask a neuroscientist what the rotarod test is useful for and the answer is likely to be straightforward: it’s a test of motor coordination. The rotarod test…
Safety in the Shadows: Using the Light/Dark Maze in Anxiety Research
October 14, 2015
Introduction As we’ve seen in previous studies, mice tend to avoid well-lit areas in favor of the dark. This predisposition is personified in the form of the…
Novel Object Recognition Tests: Objects in Maze may Seem Newer than they Appear
October 7, 2015
Introduction Memory tests have been used in psychological experiments since the beginning of it's birth as an experimental discipline. For human participants,…
Exploring the Y-Maze: A Test of Spatial Memory
June 19, 2015
Introduction People typically associate mazes with long, winding labyrinths that offer no hope of navigating, let alone escaping. That sounds scary and…
Novel Object Recognition Test: Testing Exploration and Memory
December 18, 2014
Welcome back to the Maze Engineers blog! Today we’re going to talk about how basic object recognition is tested in mice/rats. Object recognition is a complex…
Barnes Maze Test
July 22, 2014
Phew, you can stop holding your breath. The Barnes Maze is here! This maze is used to test similar aspects of learning and memory as the Morris water maze, but…
Morris Water Maze Test
July 7, 2014
I want to welcome everyone back to the MazeEngineer Blog. This week I’m going to introduce the Morris Water Maze. Like the Y-maze, this maze is often used to…
The 8 Arm Radial Maze and Reference Memory
May 22, 2014
Boris Podolsky: James how's the rat business? James Moreland: Well, actually it's mostly students I'm experimenting on now. Kurt Godel: My God, the mazes must…
