Cincinnati Water Maze

Moreover, the original design of the BWM had walls measuring just over a fifth of a meter in height, leaving approximately 20 cm of clearance between the top of the maze and the ceiling of the container.

In contrast to the BWM, the CWM possesses wider channels to prevent larger rats from propping themselves up, and has the added benefit of asymmetry and extra intersections.

Furthermore, the strategy that was predominantly seen in the BWM, where rats would swim in a straight line until forced to turn, was undone by the inherent asymmetry of the CWM.

Instead, if the rats began at point-A, to arrive at point-B they would have to turn halfway down a corridor prior to reaching a dead end.

By studying the escape latency and errors of the animal, researchers have a standardized test for the rate of learning in a subject.

Further, the CWM must be preceded by a day of training in which they must learn to swim a simple straight water-filled channel from one end to the other for 4 trials.

This allows one to measure swim speed to see that all groups are equal before entering the maze and to teach the rats that the submerged platform at the end is the escape.

Since water mazes have been used mostly with rats and mice, the extrapolation of research data from these experiments to other organisms and humans is limited.

Therefore, if an experimental treatment reduces the growth and body weight of one group compared with controls, it has little or no effect on water maze learning.

Research has shown that the CWM has a steep learning curve compared to the Morris Water Maze; making the data collected on early trials less useful.

The rats are faced with a much different challenge compared with simple T or Y-mazes due to the greater complexity of this maze.