The Y-maze is a classic experiment used to measure an animal's ability to learn and remember.
Taking advantage of the dark nature of rodents, an electric shock stimulates them to escape from a dark area (shock zone), thus avoiding the source of damage and turning to a safe bright area.
Although the magnitude and duration of the shock in the Y-maze are controllable, for rodents, the shock is still a nociceptive stimulus that may cause the animal to develop a stress response that affects learning and memory activities.
In recent years, scholars have mostly used rat Y-maze to study the pathogenesis and drug efficacy of Alzheimer's disease. The efficacy of the drug was evaluated by observing changes in learning and memory abilities in rats.
However, due to the differences of individual experiments, their own learning abilities, and the inconsistency of training methods, this may have a great impact on the effectiveness of experiments.
There are many objective factors that affect the experimental results in the experimental environment, such as the loud sound produced when switching between the safety zone and the electric shock zone in the Y-shaped maze, which is easy to frighten rats, thus affecting the learning process and effect.
Therefore, tightly controlled experimental environment is the key to successful experiments. Automated and programmed experiments help reduce human interference, shorten experimental time, increase experimental efficiency, and make experimental results more reliable.