Standardization of Morris Water Maze for Studying the Effect of Monosodium Glutamate on Spatial Memory Acquisition

Basak, Reshma (2013) Standardization of Morris Water Maze for Studying the Effect of Monosodium Glutamate on Spatial Memory Acquisition. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

PDF (MS Dissertation of Reshma Basak) Reshma_Basak-11IP11-MSThesis.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB)

Abstract

Memory is a very intricate system of information storage in living organisms forming the basis of our experience and learning. Hippocampus is one of the main neuroanatomic locations where spatial memory is processed. The formation of memory can be easily affected by a plethora of neurotoxic agents which we encounter in our daily lives more than often. Monosodium glutamate (MSG), commercially sold as Ajinomoto, is one of them. Here, we study the spatial learning behavior in mice (C57/BL6) and how it is affected by administration of MSG using the Morris Water Maze paradigm. The mice succeed in learning during 5 days of training and navigating efficiently to find the goal, taking various visual cues as a reference system. Then we observe the effect of MSG, a potent excitotoxic neurodegenerative agent on the spatial acquisition of mice using the same Morris Water Maze paradigm by analyzing the parameters like escape latency, path efficiency and average heading error. A significant decrease in the water maze performance is observed on administration of MSG, which may in turn implicate a decrease in the spatial learning abilities. We attempt to observe if there is any gross change in the hippocampal neuroanatomy due to the administration of MSG. Histopathological analysis with Bielchowsky’s silver staining does not show any significant difference in the gross anatomy of the hippocampal neuronal morphology. This may suggest that the change is happening at a ultrastructural level of the neuronal spines.

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