Research data · Activity and exploration
Open field
From 2021 to 2025, 3,980 animal research papers mentioned the open field in their title or abstract, ranking it second of the 90 tests we track.
That is 2.1 times the 1,937 papers of 2011 to 2015. Papers that mention any of the 90 tests grew to 1.2 times as many over the same span.
Papers by year
Animal research papers that mention the open field, 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 | 145 |
| 2002 | 145 |
| 2003 | 141 |
| 2004 | 166 |
| 2005 | 197 |
| 2006 | 214 |
| 2007 | 204 |
| 2008 | 249 |
| 2009 | 266 |
| 2010 | 247 |
| 2011 | 292 |
| 2012 | 339 |
| 2013 | 388 |
| 2014 | 458 |
| 2015 | 460 |
| 2016 | 496 |
| 2017 | 505 |
| 2018 | 526 |
| 2019 | 577 |
| 2020 | 589 |
| 2021 | 732 |
| 2022 | 735 |
| 2023 | 738 |
| 2024 | 763 |
| 2025 | 1,012 |
| 2026 (part year) | 906 |
Papers that mention the open field in mice and in rats, by year, 2001 to 2025
- Mouse
- Rat
Show the counts for each year and species
| Year | Mouse | Rat |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 42 | 102 |
| 2002 | 50 | 93 |
| 2003 | 35 | 99 |
| 2004 | 52 | 116 |
| 2005 | 53 | 137 |
| 2006 | 84 | 121 |
| 2007 | 85 | 116 |
| 2008 | 91 | 154 |
| 2009 | 102 | 152 |
| 2010 | 113 | 128 |
| 2011 | 134 | 157 |
| 2012 | 152 | 180 |
| 2013 | 165 | 211 |
| 2014 | 203 | 240 |
| 2015 | 207 | 240 |
| 2016 | 234 | 247 |
| 2017 | 239 | 254 |
| 2018 | 241 | 262 |
| 2019 | 298 | 261 |
| 2020 | 284 | 298 |
| 2021 | 396 | 320 |
| 2022 | 387 | 322 |
| 2023 | 405 | 312 |
| 2024 | 410 | 334 |
| 2025 | 599 | 393 |
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 3,980 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.
Strains and genetic lines
Strain names come from the MeSH terms PubMed adds when it indexes a paper. PubMed has indexed 3,096 of the 3,980 papers, so each bar is a share of those 3,096.
A paper indexed under two of these headings, such as knockout mice and a strain, counts under both.
Disease models these papers study
Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention the open field and study that disease model, with its share of the 3,980 papers. The model comes from a paper's MeSH terms. For a paper PubMed has not indexed, it comes from PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, when that service finds the disease in the title or abstract. A paper can count under more than one model.
Papers from 2021 to 2025 by disease model
Tests mentioned alongside the open field
Each bar counts the papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests, with its share of the 3,980 papers that mention the open field.
Papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests
The most cited papers from 2021 to 2025
These papers from 2021 to 2025 mention the open field and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.
Edaravone ameliorates depressive and anxiety-like behaviors via Sirt1/Nrf2/HO-1/Gpx4 pathway.
J Neuroinflammation, 2022. 467 citations.
J Neuroinflammation, 2022. 271 citations.
J Neuroinflammation, 2021. 227 citations.
Brain Behav Immun, 2021. 227 citations.
Sex differences in the elevated plus-maze test and large open field test in adult Wistar rats.
Pharmacol Biochem Behav, 2021. 197 citations.
How we counted
A count is the number of animal research papers whose title or abstract mentions one of the test's search terms. It is not a count of experiments, labs or animals.
A paper that mentions the open field only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low. The count includes 29 reviews. For 886 of the 3,980 papers, PubMed's indexing gave no species, so the species came from PubTator 3 finding one in the title or abstract.
The test's search terms are in the test list download. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.
More activity and exploration tests
These activity and exploration tests also have a page, with their papers from 2021 to 2025. Each test with 30 or more papers gets one.
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Open field in published research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/open-field
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_open_field_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Open field in published research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/data/behavioral-tests/open-field},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}Apparatus for the open field
Our store sells four products for the open field.
Shop the apparatusPapers that name our apparatus
We keep our own list of published papers whose text names our equipment. Those that mention the open field in the title or abstract are already in the counts above.
- 45 papers from 2020 to 2026 name our Open Field Test. See the papers
