Research data · Disease model
Post-traumatic stress
From 2021 to 2025, 392 animal research papers on post-traumatic stress mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often fear conditioning.
That is 1.8 times the 214 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
Fear conditioning appears in 57% of the papers on post-traumatic stress and in 6.2% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 9.1 times as common in this research. Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 on post-traumatic stress that mention the test, with its share of the 392 papers. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 44 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 392 papers on post-traumatic stress | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fear conditioning | 222 | 57% | 6% |
| Elevated plus maze | 113 | 29% | 9% |
| Open field | 52 | 13% | 12% |
| Forced swim test | 41 | 10% | 9% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 30 | 8% | 2% |
| Predator odor exposure | 28 | 7% | 1% |
| Novel object recognition | 19 | 5% | 9% |
| Morris water maze | 13 | 3% | 17% |
| Y-maze | 13 | 3% | 6% |
| Sucrose preference test | 12 | 3% | 5% |
| Tail suspension test | 11 | 3% | 4% |
| Passive avoidance | 10 | 3% | 4% |
| Light-dark box | 10 | 3% | 2% |
| Self-administration | 8 | 2% | 4% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 7 | 2% | 1% |
| Elevated zero maze | 6 | 2% | under 1% |
| Hole-board | 5 | 1% | 1% |
| Marble burying | 5 | 1% | 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 5 | 1% | under 1% |
| Treadmill running | 4 | 1% | 6% |
| Social interaction test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Von Frey test | 3 | 1% | 4% |
| Object location test | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Barnes maze | 3 | 1% | 2% |
| Conditioned place preference | 3 | 1% | 3% |
| Social approach and avoidance | 3 | 1% | under 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Hot plate | 2 | 1% | 2% |
| Attentional set shifting | 2 | 1% | under 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 2 | 1% | under 1% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| Observational fear | 2 | 1% | under 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 2 | 1% | 3% |
| Grip strength | 1 | under 1% | 4% |
| Tail flick | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Formalin test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Radial arm water maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| T-maze | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Self-grooming | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Beam walking | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Looming stimulus | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Splash test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Novel tank test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Rotarod | 1 | under 1% | 6% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on post-traumatic stress 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 | 4 |
| 2002 | 2 |
| 2003 | 3 |
| 2004 | 7 |
| 2005 | 6 |
| 2006 | 19 |
| 2007 | 12 |
| 2008 | 21 |
| 2009 | 13 |
| 2010 | 17 |
| 2011 | 15 |
| 2012 | 47 |
| 2013 | 40 |
| 2014 | 56 |
| 2015 | 56 |
| 2016 | 63 |
| 2017 | 58 |
| 2018 | 87 |
| 2019 | 86 |
| 2020 | 96 |
| 2021 | 106 |
| 2022 | 67 |
| 2023 | 64 |
| 2024 | 62 |
| 2025 | 93 |
| 2026 (part year) | 80 |
Papers on post-traumatic stress fell from 106 in 2021 to 62 in 2024, then rose to 93 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 392 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 post-traumatic stress.
A paper counts under post-traumatic stress when its MeSH terms, the subject headings PubMed adds when it indexes a paper, include one of these.
- Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
- Stress Disorders, Traumatic
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
- Epilepsy and seizures 572
- Autism spectrum disorder 484
- Schizophrenia and psychosis 401
- Sleep loss and sleep disorders 400
- 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 post-traumatic stress research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/ptsd
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_ptsd_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in post-traumatic stress research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/ptsd},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
Our store sells apparatus for nine of the 10 tests these papers mention most, all but prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle.
- Fear conditioning
- Elevated plus maze
- Open field
- Forced swim test
- Predator odor exposure
- Novel object recognition
- Morris water maze
- Y-maze
- Sucrose preference test
