Figure 4.

Rats and Mice Can Learn to Navigate the Configured Mazes

(A) Schematic of the figure-8-shaped maze created using the rat version of the reconfigurable maze. Example animal trajectories are superimposed on top of the maze. The red circle indicates a branchpoint where the rat must decide which direction to turn.

(B) Same as in (A) but with a treadmill (green). Red dashed lines indicate the gap locations where movable walls are placed to force the rats to run on the treadmill for a delay period.

(C) Spatial alternation task performance improved with experience (performance versus testing day: F_{1, 4} = 795.9, p < 10⁻⁵).

(D) Performance of the delayed version of the spatial alternation task of rats improved with experience (performance versus testing day: F_1,2 = 531.8, p = 0.0019). All were from one-way repeated-measures ANOVA. Error bars indicate SEM.

(E) Top view of the configured double T-maze using the mouse version of the reconfigurable maze.

(F) Schematics of the double T-maze. Example mouse trajectories are superimposed on the maze. Arrow marks the running directions from the food dispensers (R1/R2). The red circles indicate branch points where the mice must decide which direction to turn. Red dotted lines indicate the locations where the movable walls are placed to prevent a reverse run.

(G) Spatial alternation task performance of mice improved with experience (performance versus testing day: F_1,2 = 7320, p = 0.000136).

One-way repeated-measures ANOVA was used. Error bars indicate SEM.