Morris water maze test

The Morris water maze test was performed to assess the hippocampus-dependent spatial learning and memory of transgenic mice 7 days after the last injection (Vorhees and Williams, 2006). Mice were trained to find the escape platform in white non-toxic colored water at 23°C in a 0.8-m diameter pool (Yang et al., 2016). The behavioral test was administered for 6 consecutive days. The acquisition phase was from the first to the fifth day, and the spatial probe occurred on day 6. In each trial, mice were given 60 seconds to find the hidden platform. The escape latency is the mean time required to find the platform of four trials starting from different quadrants, recorded up to 60 seconds. On day 6, the platform was removed from the pool and each mouse was tested by a probe trial for 60 seconds (Counts and Lahiri, 2014). Data were recorded using a MT-200 Morris image motion system (Chengdu Technology & Market Corp., Chengdu, China). Mice were dried and warmed after every trial.