Series one
Episodes
Ten episodes of about ten minutes each: the water maze, its cousins, and the measures that tell you what an animal really learned. Every episode page has the full transcript and the papers we mention.
- Episode 1: The pool: how the Morris water maze began. How did a pool of milky water and a hidden platform become one of the most trusted tests of memory?
- Episode 2: The probe trial: when the platform disappears. What happens when the platform is taken away, and why is that the real test of spatial memory?
- Episode 3: The virtual water maze: the pool test for people. How do you give a person the rodent pool test without the pool, and what changes when you do?
- Episode 4: The radial arm maze: eight arms and a running list. What can eight runways and a few food pellets tell us about memory for places?
- Episode 5: The open field: what an empty box reveals. How did an empty, brightly lit box become one of the most used and most argued about tests in behaviour?
- Episode 6: The T-maze: left, right and a change of mind. Why does a mouse choose the other arm on its second visit, and what does that choice reveal?
- Episode 7: The Barnes maze: spatial memory on dry land. How does a bright table ringed with holes test spatial memory without making an animal swim?
- Episode 8: Thigmotaxis and search strategies: the shape of a search. Two mice reach the platform in the same time. How can one have learned where it is and the other not?
- Episode 9: Proximity and path efficiency: measuring a search well. Why can average distance from the goal be a better measure of memory than counting platform crossings?
- Episode 10: Tracking in VR rehabilitation: from the pool to the clinic. What does the evidence say about virtual reality for stroke rehabilitation, and where does tracking fit in?