UCL Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour 1 article published in JoVE Behavior A Behavioral Assay for Investigating the Role of Spatial Memory During Instinctive Defense in Mice Ruben Vale1,2, Dominic Evans1,2, Tiago Branco1,2 1UCL Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, 2MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology This protocol describes a behavioral assay, based on the Barnes maze test, to study how instinctive defensive actions are modified by the knowledge of spatial environment.