How to Build A Better Mouse Maze

Which way is out again? (Credit: Szasz-Fabian Jozsef)Graduate psychology students can attest to the monotony of studying lab rats. Drop the animals into a maze, take diligent notes as they scurry around, repeat ad nauseum.Mazes have been a mainstay in psychological research for more than a century, with scientists running rodents through contraptions to test their memory, learning and spatial skills. But they’ve always had limitations. Now modern technology is finding its way into mazes, making them more consistent and less time-consuming. Video tracking systems monitor a rat’s every movement, sparing researchers from hours of tedious observation and recording better data. Pneumatic doors rise from below after the animals pass to prevent them backtracking.MazeEngineers, a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, produces mazes with these automated elements. It’s founder, Shuhan He, a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, realized as a medical student that the available mazes didn’t meet his needs for ...