A Low-Cost Morris Water Maze for Undergraduate Research: Construction and Demonstration in a Rat Model of Obesity-Induced Diabetes.

The Morris Water Maze (MWM) is a standard task for assessing hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, but the cost of commercial versions of the task may be prohibitive for some undergraduate research projects. We describe the construction of a low-cost MWM for use with rodents and demonstrate the effectiveness of the MWM in a study of the effect of diet-induced obesity on cognitive function in rats. Previous studies have described an impairment in MWM performance in rats fed a high-fat diet combined with streptozotocin injection (to model Type 2 diabetes).