Morris water navigation task

The Morris water maze (Morris Water Maze ) is an experimental apparatus for behavioral experiments with rodents.

It consists of a circular pool filled with murky water and laterally with distinct markings, the so-called external cues. In the experiment, even the animals are trained over several days to independently find a located below the water surface, not visible platform and remember their spatial position. So the experiment is primarily aimed at the investigation of the spatial learning of animals and influences on this.

The advantage of the paradigm compared to conventional simple mazes in animal experiments is that there are no local landmarks, but only global and that the task has a high motivation factor due to the escape behavior of the animals.

The term labyrinth is strictly wrong, since such a definable by definition paths has, which is clearly not the case in the Morris water maze.

The Morris water maze is often transferred to the human experiment as virtual reality.