Research data · Disease model
Psychological stress
From 2021 to 2025, 1,484 animal research papers on psychological stress mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often the forced swim test.
That is 10% fewer than the 1,646 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
The sucrose preference test appears in 32% of the papers on psychological stress and in 4.7% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 6.8 times as common in this research. Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 on psychological stress that mention the test, with its share of the 1,484 papers. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 63 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 1,484 papers on psychological stress | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forced swim test | 627 | 42% | 9% |
| Sucrose preference test | 477 | 32% | 5% |
| Open field | 384 | 26% | 12% |
| Elevated plus maze | 324 | 22% | 9% |
| Tail suspension test | 292 | 20% | 4% |
| Fear conditioning | 100 | 7% | 6% |
| Morris water maze | 93 | 6% | 17% |
| Novel object recognition | 77 | 5% | 9% |
| Social interaction test | 75 | 5% | 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 64 | 4% | 1% |
| Light-dark box | 58 | 4% | 2% |
| Predator odor exposure | 40 | 3% | 1% |
| Passive avoidance | 40 | 3% | 4% |
| Y-maze | 39 | 3% | 6% |
| Self-administration | 36 | 2% | 4% |
| Conditioned place preference | 34 | 2% | 3% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 34 | 2% | 2% |
| Social approach and avoidance | 30 | 2% | under 1% |
| Splash test | 30 | 2% | under 1% |
| Wheel running | 28 | 2% | 3% |
| Treadmill running | 23 | 2% | 6% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 21 | 1% | 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 21 | 1% | under 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 20 | 1% | under 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 20 | 1% | 3% |
| Marble burying | 19 | 1% | 1% |
| Hole-board | 14 | 1% | 1% |
| Von Frey test | 14 | 1% | 4% |
| Elevated zero maze | 14 | 1% | under 1% |
| Self-grooming | 14 | 1% | 1% |
| Barnes maze | 13 | 1% | 2% |
| Tail flick | 12 | 1% | 2% |
| Object location test | 11 | 1% | 1% |
| Hot plate | 11 | 1% | 2% |
| Nest building | 10 | 1% | 1% |
| Novel tank test | 9 | 1% | 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Rotarod | 6 | under 1% | 6% |
| T-maze | 6 | under 1% | 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 5 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Grip strength | 4 | under 1% | 4% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 4 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Elevated T-maze | 4 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 3 | under 1% | 1% |
| Social operant tasks | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Looming stimulus | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cincinnati water maze | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Grid walking (foot fault) | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Writhing test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Formalin test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Step-down avoidance | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Adhesive removal test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Vogel conflict test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cold plate | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Ladder rung walking | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Gait analysis | 1 | under 1% | 3% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Beam walking | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on psychological 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 | 66 |
| 2002 | 74 |
| 2003 | 73 |
| 2004 | 92 |
| 2005 | 141 |
| 2006 | 170 |
| 2007 | 185 |
| 2008 | 258 |
| 2009 | 257 |
| 2010 | 261 |
| 2011 | 274 |
| 2012 | 289 |
| 2013 | 303 |
| 2014 | 378 |
| 2015 | 402 |
| 2016 | 364 |
| 2017 | 382 |
| 2018 | 404 |
| 2019 | 391 |
| 2020 | 349 |
| 2021 | 343 |
| 2022 | 210 |
| 2023 | 183 |
| 2024 | 319 |
| 2025 | 429 |
| 2026 (part year) | 401 |
Papers on psychological stress fell from 343 in 2021 to 183 in 2023, then rose to 429 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 1,484 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 psychological stress.
A paper counts under psychological stress when its MeSH terms, the subject headings PubMed adds when it indexes a paper, include this heading.
- Stress, Psychological
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
- 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 psychological stress research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/stress
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_stress_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in psychological stress research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/stress},
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 novelty-suppressed feeding.
- Forced swim test
- Sucrose preference test
- Open field
- Elevated plus maze
- Tail suspension test
- Fear conditioning
- Morris water maze
- Novel object recognition
- Social interaction test
