Research data
Animal models in behavioral research
From 2021 to 2025, 12,400 animal research papers mentioned a behavioral test and one of these 53 animal models, from drugs and surgery to stress and diet.
Every animal model we count
Each bar counts the animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention the animal model and at least one of the 90 behavioral tests. Under each name are the three tests mentioned most in its papers, with the share of its papers that mention each. Each animal model with 100 or more such papers has a page of its own, except haloperidol, which most of the papers we read give as a comparison drug rather than to produce a condition.
Drugs and toxins
Surgery
Stress
Diet, sleep, exercise and housing
The 9 other animal models without a link have fewer than 100 such papers.
How we counted
A paper counts when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions one of an animal model's search terms and one of the 90 behavioral tests. A count is a number of papers, not of experiments, labs or animals. A paper that mentions the animal model only in its methods is missed, so the counts run low.
Each model has its own search terms, matched as whole words, with rules that skip other meanings. Streptozotocin given into the brain counts apart from streptozotocin that causes diabetes, and CFA counts as a pain model only in papers that name neither EAE nor immunization. A paper is animal research when its MeSH terms name an animal species. If they name none, NCBI's text-mining service PubTator 3 has to find one in the title or abstract. Papers on animals other than mice, rats, zebrafish, flies and primates count only when they also mention a test. Many of them study people or use the same words for something else. A paper can count under more than one animal model.
The search terms for each animal model are in the downloads below. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.
Download the data
Each file covers both the animal models and the brain techniques.
- Animal models and brain techniques
One row per model or technique: its papers in each period, those that also mention a test, their species and the search terms.
CSV
- Papers by model or technique and year
One row per model or technique and year, with its papers and those that also mention a test.
CSV
- Every counted paper
One row for each model or technique an animal paper mentions, by PubMed ID, with the tests it mentions, its species and disease models.
CSV, compressed
- Tests mentioned with each model or technique
One row per model or technique and test, with the papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both.
CSV
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 13). Animal models in behavioral research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_animal_models_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Animal models in behavioral research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models},
note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}Equipment in our store
Our store sells equipment for many of these animal models.
- Rodent treadmill
- Motorized running wheel
- Restrainers
- Neuroscience surgery
- Surgical instruments
- Anesthesia and ventilation
- Pain assessment
- Pain and nociception tests
- Sleep deprivation chamber
- Stereotaxic systems
- Microinjection and infusion
