Research data · Disease model
Aging
From 2021 to 2025, 700 animal research papers on aging mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often the Morris water maze.
That is 21% fewer than the 887 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.
The tests these papers mention
Grip strength appears in 17% of the papers on aging and in 4.2% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 4.0 times as common in this research. Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 on aging that mention the test, with its share of the 700 papers. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 55 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 700 papers on aging | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 182 | 26% | 17% |
| Grip strength | 116 | 17% | 4% |
| Novel object recognition | 107 | 15% | 9% |
| Y-maze | 77 | 11% | 6% |
| Treadmill running | 61 | 9% | 6% |
| Open field | 58 | 8% | 12% |
| Wheel running | 48 | 7% | 3% |
| Fear conditioning | 48 | 7% | 6% |
| Rotarod | 41 | 6% | 6% |
| Elevated plus maze | 33 | 5% | 9% |
| Passive avoidance | 28 | 4% | 4% |
| Barnes maze | 26 | 4% | 2% |
| Forced swim test | 23 | 3% | 9% |
| Radial arm maze | 15 | 2% | 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 14 | 2% | 1% |
| Object location test | 14 | 2% | 1% |
| T-maze | 11 | 2% | 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 11 | 2% | 1% |
| Tail suspension test | 10 | 1% | 4% |
| Beam walking | 9 | 1% | 2% |
| Light-dark box | 8 | 1% | 2% |
| Gait analysis | 8 | 1% | 3% |
| Sucrose preference test | 7 | 1% | 5% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 7 | 1% | 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 6 | 1% | under 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 6 | 1% | 3% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 6 | 1% | 2% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 6 | 1% | 1% |
| Nest building | 6 | 1% | 1% |
| Self-administration | 5 | 1% | 4% |
| Step-down avoidance | 5 | 1% | under 1% |
| Hole-board | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Social interaction test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Marble burying | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Conditioned place preference | 3 | under 1% | 3% |
| Olfactory tests | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 3 | under 1% | 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Splash test | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Adhesive removal test | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm water maze | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 2 | under 1% | 1% |
| Von Frey test | 2 | under 1% | 4% |
| Attentional set shifting | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Elevated zero maze | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Self-grooming | 2 | under 1% | 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Predator odor exposure | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Hot plate | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Formalin test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Pole test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Looming stimulus | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cylinder test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on aging that mention a behavioral test, 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
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2001 | 85 |
| 2002 | 107 |
| 2003 | 122 |
| 2004 | 106 |
| 2005 | 120 |
| 2006 | 127 |
| 2007 | 137 |
| 2008 | 153 |
| 2009 | 186 |
| 2010 | 175 |
| 2011 | 157 |
| 2012 | 194 |
| 2013 | 182 |
| 2014 | 171 |
| 2015 | 183 |
| 2016 | 200 |
| 2017 | 203 |
| 2018 | 167 |
| 2019 | 148 |
| 2020 | 151 |
| 2021 | 153 |
| 2022 | 83 |
| 2023 | 69 |
| 2024 | 161 |
| 2025 | 234 |
| 2026 (part year) | 216 |
Papers on aging fell from 153 in 2021 to 69 in 2023, then rose to 234 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 disease models from PubMed's indexing whenever PubMed has indexed the paper, so part of this dip may come from the indexing rather than from fewer studies.
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 700 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.
Species
“Other animals” counts papers that use none of the other species in this chart.
Which papers count
A paper counts here when it is animal research, mentions at least one of the 90 tests and studies aging.
A paper counts under aging when its MeSH terms, the subject headings PubMed adds when it indexes a paper, include this heading.
- Aging
For a paper PubMed has not indexed, PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, supplies the disease model when it finds the disease in the title or abstract. A paper can count under more than one disease model.
Each paper and its disease models are in the downloads. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.
More disease models
These disease models also have a page, with their papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention a test. Each disease model with 100 or more such papers gets one.
- Cognitive impairment and dementia 4,961
- Anxiety 3,041
- Depression 2,827
- Pain conditions 2,617
- Alzheimer disease 2,445
- Substance use disorders 1,599
- Psychological stress 1,484
- Stroke and brain ischemia 1,278
- Parkinson disease 918
- Brain injury 841
- Diabetes 795
- Obesity and high-fat diet 761
- Epilepsy and seizures 572
- Autism spectrum disorder 484
- Schizophrenia and psychosis 401
- Sleep loss and sleep disorders 400
- Post-traumatic stress 392
- Spinal cord injury 382
- Multiple sclerosis and demyelination 223
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 108
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 107
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Behavioral tests in aging research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/aging
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_aging_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in aging research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/aging},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
Our store sells apparatus for all the 10 tests these papers mention most.
- Morris water maze
- Grip strength
- Novel object recognition
- Y-maze
- Treadmill running
- Open field
- Wheel running
- Fear conditioning
- Rotarod
- Elevated plus maze
