What is the Radial Maze 8-Arm?

The Radial Maze is a classic, food-motivated spatial memory apparatus in which animals must navigate 8 equally spaced arms radiating from a central platform to collect food rewards. The key feature of the radial maze is its capacity to simultaneously measure two distinct forms of spatial memory: working memory (within-session arm revisit errors — entering an already-visited arm during the same session) and reference memory (across-session errors — entering arms that are never baited). This dissociation is possible because the maze design allows the experimenter to designate some arms as always-rewarded (reference) and others as never-rewarded, enabling parallel tracking of hippocampal-dependent and striatal-dependent memory in the same paradigm.

Key Features

• Eight Equally Spaced Arms: Eight arms projecting symmetrically from a central circular platform create a clear radial geometry that naturally encourages systematic exploration and minimizes re-entry of already-explored arms.
• Working and Reference Memory Dissociation: By designating 4 always-baited and 4 never-baited arms (4/8 design), the experimenter can simultaneously score within-session (working memory) and across-session (reference memory) errors in the same trial.
• Non-Reflective, Anti-Glare Surfaces: High-contrast grey surfaces with anti-glare treatment enable overhead video tracking to automatically score arm entries, error types, and path characteristics via ANY-maze.
• Anti-Slip Textured Floors: A lightly textured arm floor provides secure footing without discomfort, ensuring that locomotor ability does not confound maze performance in aged or motor-impaired animals.
• Rat and Mouse Versions: Cat. 40152 (rats: 50 cm arm length, 10 cm wide) and Cat. 40153 (mice: 36 cm arm length, 10 cm wide) provide species-appropriate dimensions for natural foraging behavior.