Research data · Animal model
Environmental enrichment
From 2021 to 2025, 295 animal research papers mentioned environmental enrichment and at least one behavioral test.
That is about the same as the 295 papers of 2011 to 2015. Between the same two periods, all the animal research papers that mention any of the 90 tests we count rose 22%. The 2021 to 2025 count may run low because of a dip in PubMed's indexing, explained under the year chart.
The tests mentioned with environmental enrichment
The elevated plus maze appears in 18% of these papers and in 8.9% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 2.0 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 295 papers from 2021 to 2025 mention it, and what share that is. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 53 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 295 papers |
|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 70 | 24% |
| Elevated plus maze | 54 | 18% |
| Novel object recognition | 46 | 16% |
| Open field | 36 | 12% |
| Forced swim test | 30 | 10% |
| Wheel running | 25 | 8% |
| Self-administration | 25 | 8% |
| Fear conditioning | 20 | 7% |
| Y-maze | 15 | 5% |
| Sucrose preference test | 14 | 5% |
| Passive avoidance | 14 | 5% |
| Treadmill running | 13 | 4% |
| Rotarod | 13 | 4% |
| Tail suspension test | 11 | 4% |
| Social interaction test | 9 | 3% |
| Conditioned place preference | 9 | 3% |
| Beam walking | 8 | 3% |
| Light-dark box | 8 | 3% |
| Operant conditioning | 8 | 3% |
| Barnes maze | 7 | 2% |
| Elevated zero maze | 5 | 2% |
| T-maze | 5 | 2% |
| Self-grooming | 5 | 2% |
| Grip strength | 4 | 1% |
| Hole-board | 4 | 1% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 4 | 1% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | 1% |
| Von Frey test | 4 | 1% |
| Marble burying | 4 | 1% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 4 | 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 3 | 1% |
| Predator odor exposure | 3 | 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 3 | 1% |
| Object location test | 3 | 1% |
| Hot plate | 3 | 1% |
| Cylinder test | 2 | 1% |
| Ladder rung walking | 2 | 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 2 | 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 2 | 1% |
| Nest building | 2 | 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 1 | under 1% |
| Splash test | 1 | under 1% |
| Tail flick | 1 | under 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 1 | under 1% |
| Adhesive removal test | 1 | under 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 1 | under 1% |
| Water Y-maze | 1 | under 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 1 | under 1% |
| Gait analysis | 1 | under 1% |
| Formalin test | 1 | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% |
| Acetone test | 1 | under 1% |
Tests named in 30 or more of these papers link to a page on that test with environmental enrichment. To count the papers that mention two or more tests together, use the test battery tool.
Papers by year
Animal research papers that mention environmental enrichment and 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 | 14 |
| 2002 | 13 |
| 2003 | 18 |
| 2004 | 20 |
| 2005 | 24 |
| 2006 | 31 |
| 2007 | 29 |
| 2008 | 36 |
| 2009 | 51 |
| 2010 | 32 |
| 2011 | 48 |
| 2012 | 53 |
| 2013 | 64 |
| 2014 | 61 |
| 2015 | 69 |
| 2016 | 64 |
| 2017 | 64 |
| 2018 | 67 |
| 2019 | 67 |
| 2020 | 64 |
| 2021 | 74 |
| 2022 | 63 |
| 2023 | 56 |
| 2024 | 48 |
| 2025 | 54 |
| 2026 (part year) | 41 |
Papers that mention environmental enrichment and a test fell from 74 in 2021 to 48 in 2024, then rose to 54 in 2025. Part of this dip may come from PubMed's indexing rather than from fewer studies. We take a paper's species from PubMed's indexing when the indexing names one. Otherwise PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, has to find a species in the title or abstract, or the paper is not counted. Papers that PubMed indexed under the subject heading Animals also fell and rose, from 200,221 in 2021 to 156,447 in 2023 and 235,479 in 2025.
Disease models in papers that mention environmental enrichment
Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 295 papers from 2021 to 2025 are tagged with it, and what share that is. The model comes from the paper's MeSH terms, the subject headings the National Library of Medicine adds when it indexes a paper. A paper without MeSH terms gets its model from PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, if PubTator 3 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
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 295 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 species this chart names.
NIH funding
43 of the 295 papers (15%) had NIH funding. NIDA funded the most, 15 of them. A paper counts as NIH-funded when its PubMed record lists an NIH grant, or when NIH RePORTER links it to an NIH project.
NIH-funded papers by institute
Each share is of the NIH-funded papers. A paper with grants from two institutes counts under both.
The most cited papers from 2021 to 2025
These papers from 2021 to 2025 mention environmental enrichment and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.
Gut Microbes, 2021. 90 citations.
Int J Neurosci, 2021. 74 citations.
Heliyon, 2023. 64 citations.
Biol Psychiatry, 2021. 41 citations.
Neurochem Int, 2022. 37 citations.
How we counted
A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions environmental enrichment and at least one of the 90 behavioral tests. A count is a number of papers, not of experiments, labs or animals. A paper that mentions environmental enrichment only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low.
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.
The search terms for environmental enrichment are in the download Animal models and brain techniques. The counts in the chart of tests are in Tests mentioned with each model or technique. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.
More animal models
Each animal model with 100 or more papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention a test has a page. These are the others, each with that count.
- Chronic unpredictable stress 973 papers
- Exercise 916 papers
- Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) 876 papers
- High-fat diet 868 papers
- Restraint stress 553 papers
- Streptozotocin diabetes 510 papers
- Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) 494 papers
- Nerve injury 485 papers
- Scopolamine 483 papers
- Spinal cord injury 395 papers
- Maternal separation and early-life stress 343 papers
- Traumatic brain injury (CCI, fluid percussion, weight drop) 334 papers
- Chemotherapy drugs 323 papers
- Carrageenan 317 papers
- Ovariectomy 309 papers
- Sleep deprivation 306 papers
- Social defeat stress 304 papers
- Social isolation 276 papers
- Carotid artery occlusion (BCCAO, 2VO) 264 papers
- 6-OHDA 255 papers
- MPTP 249 papers
- D-galactose 244 papers
- Complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) 216 papers
- Pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) 212 papers
- Predator stress 206 papers
- MK-801 190 papers
- Streptozotocin in the brain (ICV-STZ) 174 papers
- Gut microbiota depletion or transplant 166 papers
- Kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures 161 papers
- Sepsis 161 papers
- Rotenone 160 papers
- Aluminum chloride 157 papers
- Prenatal valproic acid 149 papers
- Single prolonged stress 142 papers
- Neonatal hypoxia-ischemia 125 papers
- Radiation exposure 125 papers
- Calorie restriction and fasting 120 papers
- Intracerebral hemorrhage 114 papers
- Intermittent or chronic hypoxia 113 papers
- Chronic corticosterone 109 papers
- Reserpine 109 papers
- Maternal immune activation 103 papers
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 13). Behavioral tests with environmental enrichment [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/environmental-enrichment
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_environmental_enrichment_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests with environmental enrichment},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/environmental-enrichment},
note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
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