ELEVATED PLUS MAZE
The standard elevated plus-maze is commonly used to assess anxiety-like behaviour in laboratory animals (rats/mice).
The maze is usually a cross shaped maze with two open arms and two closed arms, which is elevated above the floor.
This task exploits the conflict between the innate fear that rodents have of open areas versus their desire to explore novel environments. Security is provided by the closed arms whereas the open arms offer exploratory value. When anxious, the natural tendency of rodents is to prefer enclosed dark spaces to opened brightly lit spaces. In this context, anxiety-related behaviour is measured by the degree to which the rodent avoids the unenclosed arms of the maze.
The Panlab elevated-plus-maze is currently built in two different configurations (each one available for mice or rat):
- Basic maze which can be associated to our Panlab SMART Video-Tracking System
- Maze equipped with rows of infrared photocells connected to a computer through the LE3846 control unit and the Panlab MazeSoft-4 software.