Research data · Disease model
Epilepsy and seizures
From 2021 to 2025, 572 animal research papers on epilepsy and seizures mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often the Morris water maze.
That is 1.3 times the 440 papers of 2011 to 2015. Papers that mention any of the 90 tests grew to 1.2 times as many over the same span.
The tests these papers mention
Passive avoidance appears in 10% of the papers on epilepsy and seizures and in 3.5% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 2.9 times as common in this research. Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 on epilepsy and seizures that mention the test, with its share of the 572 papers. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 60 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 572 papers on epilepsy and seizures | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 131 | 23% | 17% |
| Novel object recognition | 98 | 17% | 9% |
| Elevated plus maze | 93 | 16% | 9% |
| Open field | 90 | 16% | 12% |
| Rotarod | 73 | 13% | 6% |
| Passive avoidance | 59 | 10% | 4% |
| Y-maze | 53 | 9% | 6% |
| Forced swim test | 43 | 8% | 9% |
| Light-dark box | 32 | 6% | 2% |
| Barnes maze | 21 | 4% | 2% |
| T-maze | 21 | 4% | 1% |
| Tail suspension test | 19 | 3% | 4% |
| Sucrose preference test | 19 | 3% | 5% |
| Fear conditioning | 18 | 3% | 6% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 12 | 2% | 1% |
| Grip strength | 12 | 2% | 4% |
| Radial arm maze | 10 | 2% | 1% |
| Object location test | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Nest building | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Formalin test | 8 | 1% | 2% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 7 | 1% | 1% |
| Beam walking | 7 | 1% | 2% |
| Hot plate | 7 | 1% | 2% |
| Self-grooming | 7 | 1% | 1% |
| Tail flick | 6 | 1% | 2% |
| Von Frey test | 6 | 1% | 4% |
| Wheel running | 6 | 1% | 3% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 6 | 1% | 2% |
| Elevated zero maze | 6 | 1% | under 1% |
| Writhing test | 5 | 1% | 2% |
| Treadmill running | 5 | 1% | 6% |
| Marble burying | 5 | 1% | 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 5 | 1% | 3% |
| Self-administration | 4 | 1% | 4% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Hole-board | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Splash test | 4 | 1% | under 1% |
| Social interaction test | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Conditioned place preference | 3 | 1% | 3% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Gait analysis | 2 | under 1% | 3% |
| Resident-intruder test | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Rotational behavior (rotometer) | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 2 | under 1% | 1% |
| Step-down avoidance | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cylinder test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Active place avoidance | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Pole test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cold plate | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Olfactory tests | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Drug discrimination | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Water Y-maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on epilepsy and seizures 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 | 49 |
| 2002 | 53 |
| 2003 | 46 |
| 2004 | 46 |
| 2005 | 60 |
| 2006 | 50 |
| 2007 | 53 |
| 2008 | 52 |
| 2009 | 78 |
| 2010 | 78 |
| 2011 | 88 |
| 2012 | 87 |
| 2013 | 82 |
| 2014 | 83 |
| 2015 | 100 |
| 2016 | 135 |
| 2017 | 102 |
| 2018 | 120 |
| 2019 | 126 |
| 2020 | 117 |
| 2021 | 114 |
| 2022 | 112 |
| 2023 | 97 |
| 2024 | 117 |
| 2025 | 132 |
| 2026 (part year) | 101 |
Papers on epilepsy and seizures fell from 114 in 2021 to 97 in 2023, then rose to 132 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 572 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 epilepsy and seizures.
A paper counts under epilepsy and seizures when its MeSH terms, the subject headings PubMed adds when it indexes a paper, include one of these.
- Epilepsy, with the headings under it
- Seizures, with the headings under it
- Status Epilepticus
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
- Aging 700
- 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 epilepsy and seizures research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/epilepsy
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_epilepsy_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in epilepsy and seizures research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/epilepsy},
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
- Novel object recognition
- Elevated plus maze
- Open field
- Rotarod
- Passive avoidance
- Y-maze
- Forced swim test
- Light-dark box
- Barnes maze
