Research data · Disease model and test

Light-dark box in substance use disorders research

From 2021 to 2025, 33 animal research papers on substance use disorders mentioned the light-dark box in their title or abstract.

That is 1.7 times the 19 papers of 2011 to 2015. Between the same two periods, the papers on substance use disorders that mention any of the 90 tests we count fell 12%.

33 papers on substance use disorders from 2021 to 2025 mentioned the light-dark box
2% of the papers on substance use disorders that mention any test mention the light-dark box
5% of the papers that mention the light-dark box are on substance use disorders
1.7 times as many papers as in 2011 to 2015

Papers by year

Animal research papers on substance use disorders that mention the light-dark box, 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
Papers by year
YearPapers
20011
20020
20032
20042
20054
20062
20072
20085
20093
20101
20116
20122
20134
20143
20154
20167
201711
201811
20196
20209
20218
20226
20237
20246
20256
2026 (part year)8

Which species the papers used

Each bar is a share of the 33 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.

Species

Rat
21 papers 64%
Mouse
12 papers 36%
Zebrafish
1 paper 3%
Other animals
1 paper 3%

“Other animals” counts papers that use none of the species this chart names.

Tests mentioned alongside the light-dark box

Each bar is one test, with how many of the 33 papers also mention it, and what share that is. Of these papers, 7 (21%) mention no other test.

The 12 tests these papers mention most

Which papers count

A paper counts here when it is animal research, mentions the light-dark box in its title or abstract, and studies substance use disorders.

We tell whether a paper studies substance use disorders from its MeSH terms, the subject headings the National Library of Medicine adds when it indexes a paper. For a paper without MeSH terms, PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, has to find the disease in the title or abstract. A paper can count under more than one disease model. A paper that mentions the test only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low.

The page on substance use disorders research names the subject headings we count as substance use disorders. Download the test list for the search terms we used for the light-dark box, or the paper list for the PubMed ID of every paper behind these counts. Our main page, Behavioral tests in published research, has the full method and each source's terms of use.

More tests and disease models

Every pairing of a disease model and a test with 30 or more papers from 2021 to 2025 has a page like this one.

The page on the light-dark box counts all the papers that mention it, whatever they study. The page on substance use disorders research ranks the tests by their papers on substance use disorders.

How to cite

APA

ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Light-dark box in substance use disorders research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/substance-use/light-dark-box

BibTeX

@misc{conductscience_substance_use_light_dark_box_2026,
  author = {{ConductScience}},
  title = {Light-dark box in substance use disorders research},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/models/substance-use/light-dark-box},
  note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}

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