Chemical exposures and animal activity: utility of the figure-eight maze

In 1975, Norton and coworkers (11) described a figure-eight maze system for measuring motor activity in rodents. Since their original report, a number of studies have appeared in the literature which have utilized the figure-eight maze to evaluate the behavioral toxicity of a variety of chemical and physical agents (Table 1). The present paper describes a number of salient features of the maze which have emerged from these studies which support its continued use in toxicological studies. These features are described in the context of EPA's Test Guidelines for motor activity (4).