Research data ยท Reward and motivation

Drug discrimination

From 2021 to 2025, 65 animal research papers mentioned drug discrimination in their title or abstract, ranking it 65th of the 90 tests we track.

That is 46% fewer than the 120 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.

65 animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 mentioned the test
46% fewer papers than in 2011 to 2015
65th of the 90 tests by papers from 2021 to 2025
74% of these papers used rats and 40% used mice

Papers by year

Animal research papers that mention drug discrimination, 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
200131
200240
200331
200425
200532
200627
200724
200819
200931
201019
201128
201220
201321
201432
201519
201626
201718
201830
201912
202020
202112
202210
202311
202418
202514
2026 (part year)15

Papers that mention drug discrimination fell from 12 in 2021 to 10 in 2022, then rose to 14 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 drug discrimination 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
2001222
2002629
2003324
2004418
2005822
2006623
2007121
2008511
2009817
2010811
2011813
2012712
201359
2014917
2015812
2016912
2017510
2018512
201919
2020513
202149
202236
202339
2024913
2025711

Which species the papers used

Each bar is a share of the 65 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.

Species

Rat
48 papers 74%
Mouse
26 papers 40%
Other animals
4 papers 6%
Nonhuman primate
2 papers 3%

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 61 of the 65 papers, so each bar is a share of those 61.

Sprague-Dawley rats
28 papers 46%
C57BL mice
9 papers 15%
Long-Evans rats
4 papers 7%
Knockout mice
1 paper 2%
ICR mice
1 paper 2%

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 drug discrimination and study that disease model, with its share of the 65 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 drug discrimination

Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests, with its share of the 65 papers that mention drug discrimination.

Papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests

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 drug discrimination only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low. The count includes 4 reviews. For 4 of the 65 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). Drug discrimination in published research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/drug-discrimination

BibTeX

@misc{conductscience_drug_discrimination_2026,
  author = {{ConductScience}},
  title = {Drug discrimination in published research},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/drug-discrimination},
  note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}

Apparatus for drug discrimination

Our store sells one product for drug discrimination.

Shop the apparatus