Elevated plus maze (EPM) is one of the most widely used equipment for measuring anxiety-related emotional and behavioral changes and it can be used to examine the phenotypes, emotion-related drug effects and neuropsychologyical disorders. EPM is performed on a plus-shaped apparatus, which is elevated 50 cm above the ground, with two closed arms (30 x 5 cm, wall 20 cm) and two open arms (30 x 5 cm). Animals face approach-avoidance conflict when exploring the EPM and they show approach and avoidance behaviors toward the closed and open arms, respectively. The video-tracking (EthoVision XT) is used to track the traveling distances, cumulative duration, and frequency into the closed and open arms during the 5 min EPM experiment.
In order to increase the validity and the application of the EPM, TMC offers two versions of open arm (with or without ledge). During the 5 min experiment, animal normally spend more than 60% of time in the closed arms and less than 25% in the open arms with ledges. On the other hand, animals spend most of the time lingering in the closed arms (>90 %) compare to the open arms with no ledges. These two versions of EPM can detect the anxiogenic and anxiolytic effect of experimental manipulations more precisely.

 

EPM without ledge

EPM with ledge

Reference
Walf, A. A., & Frye, C. A. (2007). The use of the elevated plus maze as an assay of anxiety-related behavior in rodents. Nature protocols, 2(2), 322.

Data Provided (For example)

Fee for Elevated Plus Maze