Research data · Disease model
Sleep loss and sleep disorders
From 2021 to 2025, 400 animal research papers on sleep loss and sleep disorders mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often the Morris water maze.
That is 2.4 times the 167 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
Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 on sleep loss and sleep disorders that mention the test, with its share of the 400 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 400 papers on sleep loss and sleep disorders | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 111 | 28% | 17% |
| Open field | 93 | 23% | 12% |
| Elevated plus maze | 61 | 15% | 9% |
| Forced swim test | 52 | 13% | 9% |
| Novel object recognition | 40 | 10% | 9% |
| Y-maze | 35 | 9% | 6% |
| Tail suspension test | 33 | 8% | 4% |
| Sucrose preference test | 29 | 7% | 5% |
| Fear conditioning | 27 | 7% | 6% |
| Rotarod | 19 | 5% | 6% |
| Passive avoidance | 19 | 5% | 4% |
| Treadmill running | 14 | 4% | 6% |
| Wheel running | 10 | 3% | 3% |
| Self-administration | 10 | 3% | 4% |
| Light-dark box | 10 | 3% | 2% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 8 | 2% | 2% |
| Object location test | 8 | 2% | 1% |
| Grip strength | 7 | 2% | 4% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 5 | 1% | 1% |
| Barnes maze | 5 | 1% | 2% |
| Conditioned place preference | 5 | 1% | 3% |
| Von Frey test | 5 | 1% | 4% |
| Hot plate | 4 | 1% | 2% |
| Social interaction test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Marble burying | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Splash test | 4 | 1% | under 1% |
| Beam walking | 4 | 1% | 2% |
| Predator odor exposure | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Radial arm water maze | 3 | 1% | under 1% |
| Formalin test | 3 | 1% | 2% |
| Hole-board | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 2 | 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| T-maze | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| Step-down avoidance | 2 | 1% | under 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 2 | 1% | under 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 2 | 1% | 3% |
| Nest building | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| Tail flick | 2 | 1% | 2% |
| Self-grooming | 2 | 1% | 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Novel tank test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Drug discrimination | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Writhing test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Adhesive removal test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Gait analysis | 1 | under 1% | 3% |
| Pole test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Elevated zero maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on sleep loss and sleep disorders 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 | 3 |
| 2002 | 4 |
| 2003 | 6 |
| 2004 | 13 |
| 2005 | 11 |
| 2006 | 11 |
| 2007 | 14 |
| 2008 | 19 |
| 2009 | 24 |
| 2010 | 21 |
| 2011 | 31 |
| 2012 | 22 |
| 2013 | 35 |
| 2014 | 36 |
| 2015 | 43 |
| 2016 | 39 |
| 2017 | 46 |
| 2018 | 50 |
| 2019 | 50 |
| 2020 | 65 |
| 2021 | 60 |
| 2022 | 74 |
| 2023 | 63 |
| 2024 | 93 |
| 2025 | 110 |
| 2026 (part year) | 110 |
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 400 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 sleep loss and sleep disorders.
A paper counts under sleep loss and sleep disorders when its MeSH terms, the subject headings PubMed adds when it indexes a paper, include one of these.
- Sleep Deprivation
- Sleep Wake Disorders, with the headings under it
- Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders
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
- 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 sleep loss and sleep disorders research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/sleep
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_sleep_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in sleep loss and sleep disorders research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/sleep},
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
- Open field
- Elevated plus maze
- Forced swim test
- Novel object recognition
- Y-maze
- Tail suspension test
- Sucrose preference test
- Fear conditioning
- Rotarod
