Osavampator

The Shuttle Box Test for TDPA, or temporally dissociated passive avoidance, measures hippocampus-dependent associative learning by testing whether a rodent avoids entering a dark compartment that was previously paired with foot shock after a temporal delay between dark-compartment entry and shock delivery. The main behavioral readout is crossover or step-through latency from the light chamber into the dark chamber; increased latency across training or retention trials reflects learned avoidance memory rather than motor performance alone.

The Morris Water Maze is a rodent spatial learning and memory assay in which a mouse or rat swims in opaque water to find an escape platform; in the hidden-platform version, the animal cannot see the platform and must use distal extra-maze cues to learn its fixed spatial location. The assay primarily measures hippocampus-dependent spatial learning during acquisition trials and spatial reference memory during probe trials after platform removal; readouts include escape latency, swim path length, swim speed, quadrant occupancy, platform-site crossings, and proximity to the former platform location.

Ca²⁺ staining is an experimental technique that utilizes specific fluorescent probes (such as Fluo-4 AM, Fura-2, etc.) to qualitatively or quantitatively detect dynamic changes in intracellular Ca²⁺ concentrations; this is achieved by monitoring the changes in fluorescent signals generated when these probes bind to free intracellular calcium ions. The underlying principle relies primarily on the presence of chelating groups within the probe's molecular structure that possess high affinity for calcium ions.