A still of the Elevated plus maze this video shows. The screen reads: Open arms or closed arms?.
The elevated plus maze: open arms or closed?
Your channel hereExplainer · 60 seconds
Explain why time on the open arms tells researchers about anxiety-like behavior in rodents.
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What to do and say
A sample script of about 85 words. Say it your own way.
- 0:00
DoShow a photo of the maze from its product page: four arms in a plus, two with walls and two without.
SayTwo arms have walls. Two don't. Where would you go?
- 0:05
DoExplain the trial: the animal starts in the center and explores for 5 minutes.
SayThis is the elevated plus maze. It stands above the floor, shaped like a plus. A mouse or rat starts in the center and explores for five minutes.
- 0:25
DoExplain what researchers count: time on the open arms and entries into them.
SayRodents tend to stay near walls. So researchers count how much time the animal spends on the open arms, and how often it goes out on them.
- 0:40
DoSay how drugs that reduce anxiety raise both numbers, which is how the test was checked.
SayDrugs that reduce anxiety raise both numbers. That is how researchers showed the test measures anxiety-like behavior.
- 0:55
DoShow the maze's page on conductscience.com.
SaySee the maze at conductscience.com.
Posting it yourself? Say that ConductScience paid you, in the video or the caption, and use the platform's paid partnership label if it has one.
What viewers should learn
More time on the open arms, and more entries into them, mean less anxiety-like behavior. Drugs that reduce anxiety raise both.
Classic study: Pellow et al., 1985.
Read the product page before you film
Start from its page: Elevated plus maze on conductscience.com. It has the sizes, what researchers measure and photos of the apparatus. Anyone can open it.
Show the photos on its page or a diagram you draw. Film a maze only where you have permission. Never show real participants, children, patients, private records or unpublished results. Get permission before you film at your school or workplace, or name it. The handbook has the rest.