Research data · Disease model
Pain conditions
From 2021 to 2025, 2,617 animal research papers on pain conditions mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often the von Frey test.
That is 1.1 times the 2,385 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
The von Frey test appears in 38% of the papers on pain conditions and in 4.0% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 9.5 times as common in this research. Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 on pain conditions that mention the test, with its share of the 2,617 papers. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 65 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 2,617 papers on pain conditions | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Von Frey test | 988 | 38% | 4% |
| Hot plate | 450 | 17% | 2% |
| Formalin test | 386 | 15% | 2% |
| Tail flick | 293 | 11% | 2% |
| Writhing test | 271 | 10% | 2% |
| Open field | 199 | 8% | 12% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 147 | 6% | 1% |
| Rotarod | 146 | 6% | 6% |
| Gait analysis | 146 | 6% | 3% |
| Forced swim test | 136 | 5% | 9% |
| Elevated plus maze | 128 | 5% | 9% |
| Conditioned place preference | 100 | 4% | 3% |
| Acetone test | 76 | 3% | under 1% |
| Grip strength | 65 | 2% | 4% |
| Cold plate | 56 | 2% | under 1% |
| Sucrose preference test | 56 | 2% | 5% |
| Treadmill running | 55 | 2% | 6% |
| Paw pressure test | 52 | 2% | under 1% |
| Tail suspension test | 51 | 2% | 4% |
| Wheel running | 46 | 2% | 3% |
| Morris water maze | 45 | 2% | 17% |
| Novel object recognition | 42 | 2% | 9% |
| Self-administration | 32 | 1% | 4% |
| Fear conditioning | 28 | 1% | 6% |
| Light-dark box | 26 | 1% | 2% |
| Self-grooming | 23 | 1% | 1% |
| Y-maze | 23 | 1% | 6% |
| Operant conditioning | 21 | 1% | 3% |
| Nest building | 13 | under 1% | 1% |
| Passive avoidance | 11 | under 1% | 4% |
| Beam walking | 11 | under 1% | 2% |
| Thermal gradient and temperature preference | 10 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Elevated zero maze | 9 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Marble burying | 9 | under 1% | 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 9 | under 1% | 1% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 8 | under 1% | 2% |
| Burrowing | 8 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 7 | under 1% | 1% |
| Ladder rung walking | 7 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 7 | under 1% | 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 7 | under 1% | 1% |
| Hole-board | 6 | under 1% | 1% |
| Social interaction test | 6 | under 1% | 1% |
| Splash test | 5 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Adhesive removal test | 5 | under 1% | under 1% |
| T-maze | 5 | under 1% | 1% |
| Object location test | 4 | under 1% | 1% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | under 1% | 1% |
| Real-time place preference | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Observational fear | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Predator odor exposure | 3 | under 1% | 1% |
| Drug discrimination | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm water maze | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Grid walking (foot fault) | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 2 | under 1% | 1% |
| Rotational behavior (rotometer) | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Barnes maze | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Three-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cylinder test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Runway | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on pain conditions 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 | 206 |
| 2002 | 190 |
| 2003 | 245 |
| 2004 | 252 |
| 2005 | 286 |
| 2006 | 289 |
| 2007 | 322 |
| 2008 | 304 |
| 2009 | 359 |
| 2010 | 418 |
| 2011 | 464 |
| 2012 | 429 |
| 2013 | 470 |
| 2014 | 528 |
| 2015 | 494 |
| 2016 | 532 |
| 2017 | 492 |
| 2018 | 503 |
| 2019 | 490 |
| 2020 | 594 |
| 2021 | 550 |
| 2022 | 529 |
| 2023 | 479 |
| 2024 | 507 |
| 2025 | 552 |
| 2026 (part year) | 529 |
Papers on pain conditions fell from 550 in 2021 to 479 in 2023, then rose to 552 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 2,617 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 pain conditions.
A paper counts under pain conditions when its MeSH terms, the subject headings PubMed adds when it indexes a paper, include one of these.
- Pain
- Chronic Pain
- Neuralgia, with the headings under it
- Hyperalgesia
- Nociceptive Pain
- Pain, Postoperative
- Visceral Pain
- Cancer Pain
- Diabetic Neuropathies
- Sciatica
- Peripheral Nerve Injuries
- Sciatic Neuropathy
- Musculoskeletal Pain
- Arthralgia
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
- 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
- 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 pain conditions research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/pain
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_pain_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in pain conditions research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/pain},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
Our store sells apparatus for eight of the 10 tests these papers mention most, all but the formalin test and the writhing test.
- Von Frey test
- Hot plate
- Tail flick
- Open field
- Hargreaves plantar test
- Rotarod
- Gait analysis
- Forced swim test
