Research data ยท Reward and motivation

Conditioned place preference

From 2021 to 2025, 1,078 animal research papers mentioned conditioned place preference in their title or abstract, ranking it 16th of the 90 tests we track.

That is 11% fewer than the 1,205 papers of 2011 to 2015. Papers that mention any of the 90 tests rose 22% over the same span. The 2021 to 2025 count may run low because of a dip in PubMed's indexing, explained under the year chart.

1,078 animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 mentioned the test
11% fewer papers than in 2011 to 2015
16th of the 90 tests by papers from 2021 to 2025
60% of these papers used mice and 39% used rats

Papers by year

Animal research papers that mention conditioned place preference, by year, 2001 to 2026

The 2026 bar counts papers added to PubMed by November 8, 2026.

  • Papers in a full year
  • 2026 so far
Show the counts for each year
Papers by year
YearPapers
200174
2002100
2003139
2004128
2005126
2006162
2007169
2008195
2009183
2010179
2011231
2012241
2013252
2014286
2015195
2016241
2017275
2018244
2019243
2020258
2021257
2022213
2023189
2024193
2025226
2026 (part year)208

Papers that mention conditioned place preference fell from 257 in 2021 to 189 in 2023, then rose to 226 in 2025. Papers that PubMed indexed under the MeSH heading Animals also fell and rose, from 200,221 in 2021 to 156,447 in 2023 and 235,479 in 2025. We take each paper's species from PubMed's indexing whenever it names one, so part of this dip may come from the indexing rather than from fewer studies.

Papers that mention conditioned place preference in mice and in rats, by year, 2001 to 2025

  • Mouse
  • Rat
Show the counts for each year and species
Papers by year, mice and rats
YearMouseRat
20012446
20023362
20035588
20045271
20054971
20067385
200761104
200876116
20098596
20107694
201185141
2012106120
2013126117
2014127153
201585101
2016123111
2017125140
2018125109
2019129114
2020143110
2021152111
202213177
202310782
202411778
202514077

Which species the papers used

Each bar is a share of the 1,078 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.

Species

Mouse
647 papers 60%
Rat
425 papers 39%
Other animals
53 papers 5%
Zebrafish
20 papers 2%
Nonhuman primate
2 papers under 1%
Fruit fly
1 paper under 1%

โ€œOther animalsโ€ counts papers that use none of the other species in this chart.

Strains and genetic lines

Strain names come from the MeSH terms PubMed adds when it indexes a paper. PubMed has indexed 915 of the 1,078 papers, so each bar is a share of those 915.

C57BL mice
237 papers 26%
Sprague-Dawley rats
139 papers 15%
Wistar rats
102 papers 11%
Knockout mice
55 papers 6%
Transgenic mice
21 papers 2%
ICR mice
7 papers 1%
Long-Evans rats
7 papers 1%
BALB/c mice
4 papers under 1%

A paper indexed under two of these headings, such as knockout mice and a strain, counts under both.

Disease models these papers study

Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention conditioned place preference and study that disease model, with its share of the 1,078 papers. The model comes from a paper's MeSH terms. For a paper PubMed has not indexed, it comes from PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, when that service finds the disease in the title or abstract. A paper can count under more than one model.

Papers from 2021 to 2025 by disease model

Tests mentioned alongside conditioned place preference

Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests, with its share of the 1,078 papers that mention conditioned place preference.

Papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests

125 papers 12%
47 papers 4%
40 papers 4%
20 papers 2%
14 papers 1%

The most cited papers from 2021 to 2025

These papers from 2021 to 2025 mention conditioned place preference and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026. We show two of the five most cited papers and leave out three because of words in their titles.

  1. Tris (1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate exposure to zebrafish causes neurodevelopmental toxicity and abnormal locomotor behavior.

    Sci Total Environ, 2021. 74 citations.

  2. Touch neurons underlying dopaminergic pleasurable touch and sexual receptivity.

    Cell, 2023. 64 citations.

How we counted

A count is the number of animal research papers whose title or abstract mentions one of the test's search terms. It is not a count of experiments, labs or animals.

A paper that mentions conditioned place preference only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low. The count includes 26 reviews. For 163 of the 1,078 papers, PubMed's indexing gave no species, so the species came from PubTator 3 finding one in the title or abstract.

The test's search terms are in the test list download. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.

More reward and motivation tests

These reward and motivation tests also have a page, with their papers from 2021 to 2025. Each test with 30 or more papers gets one.

How to cite

APA

ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Conditioned place preference in published research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/conditioned-place-preference

BibTeX

@misc{conductscience_conditioned_place_preference_2026,
  author = {{ConductScience}},
  title = {Conditioned place preference in published research},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/conditioned-place-preference},
  note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}

Apparatus for conditioned place preference

Our store sells 57 products for conditioned place preference.

Shop the apparatus

Papers that name our apparatus

We keep our own list of published papers whose text names our equipment. Those that mention conditioned place preference in the title or abstract are already in the counts above.

  • 6 papers from 2018 to 2026 name our Conditioned Place Preference. See the papers