Previous Training in the Water Maze

It has been shown that acquisition rates in the water maze vary across strains of mice, although the differential effects of previous experience in this spatial task have been scarcely evaluated. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of training in the water maze at an early age (2 months) in two strains of mice (NMRI and C57BL) using a longitudinal study. Mice with or without previous training were tested when they were 6 months, and retested when 10 months old. The results showed that trained NMRI mice performed better than all the other groups, both at test and retest, indicating that previous training had more beneficial effects in NMRI than in C57BL mice. These resul…