MOTIVATION Spatial learning is one of the most widely studied cognitive domains in neuroscience. The Morris water maze and the Barnes maze are the most commonly used techniques to assess spatial learning and memory in rodents. Despite the fact that these tasks are well-validated paradigms for testing spatial learning abilities, manual categorization of performance into behavioral strategies is ...

Entries of and time spent in a novel Y-maze arm that had changed from white (during acquisition trials) to black (during retention trials) were investigated in male and female Long-Evans hooded rats after the apparatus had been horizontally rotated through 180 degrees or left undisturbed. Maze rotation reduced responsiveness to this arm in males but not in females. When each arm was associated ...

BACKGROUND Maze surgery for atrial fibrillation (AF) is a curative therapy, but its effect on health-related quality of life has not been studied. METHODS AND RESULTS Maze operations were performed in 48 patients with drug-refractory AF. The majority of patients (80%) had lone AF, and the primary indication for surgery in all patients was AF. The SF-36 Health Survey was used to assess quality...

Drug use and abuse for recreational purposes is a common phenomenon, with club drugs such as MDMA (3,4-methylendioxymethamphetamine) being popular for its energetic and euphoric effects – recreating an artificial feeling of “Ecstasy”. Although use of the drug itself has remained relatively constant over the years, the population among which it is popular has been shifting toward younger users, ...

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia in clinical practice. Surgical ablation is a therapeutic procedure that creates lines of conduction block to interrupt the maintenance of AF. However, surgical AF ablation procedures are largely based on empirical considerations, and may not be optimized. In this study, based on a detailed human atrial model with fiber ori...

This study evaluated the mid-term results of the modified maze procedure using cryoablation for treating atrial fibrillation associated with rheumatic mitral valve disease. Between March 2000 and February 2004, 177 consecutive patients underwent the modified maze procedure using cryoablation concomitant with mitral valve surgery, were divided into the modified Cox-Maze III (group CM, n=88), mod...

The present study sought to identify the role of the mammillary bodies and their projections to the anterior thalamic nuclei for spatial memory. Rats with either selective, neurotoxic mammillary body lesions or discrete mammillothalamic tract lesions were tested on various spatial working memory tasks. Tests using the T-maze, radial-arm maze, and water maze were manipulated to compare three pos...

BXSB mice have an approximately 40-60% incidence of neocortical ectopias in layer I of the prefrontal/motor cortex. Prior studies have found major behavioral differences between those with ectopias and their non-ectopic littermates. Some of these findings indicate that the two groups differ with respect to spatial reference and working memory. The purpose of this study was to measure reference ...