Research data · Animal model
Exercise
From 2021 to 2025, 916 animal research papers mentioned exercise and at least one behavioral test.
That is 1.9 times the 478 papers of 2011 to 2015. Between the same two periods, all the animal research papers that mention any of the 90 tests we count grew more slowly, to 1.2 times as many.
The tests mentioned with exercise
Grip strength appears in 20% of these papers and in 4.2% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 4.9 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 916 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 66 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 916 papers |
|---|---|---|
| Grip strength | 187 | 20% |
| Morris water maze | 153 | 17% |
| Forced swim test | 122 | 13% |
| Rotarod | 109 | 12% |
| Open field | 106 | 12% |
| Elevated plus maze | 83 | 9% |
| Novel object recognition | 81 | 9% |
| Sucrose preference test | 41 | 4% |
| Passive avoidance | 40 | 4% |
| Y-maze | 36 | 4% |
| Gait analysis | 36 | 4% |
| Tail suspension test | 33 | 4% |
| Von Frey test | 30 | 3% |
| Fear conditioning | 27 | 3% |
| Beam walking | 27 | 3% |
| Conditioned place preference | 18 | 2% |
| Barnes maze | 17 | 2% |
| Ladder rung walking | 14 | 2% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 14 | 2% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 13 | 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 12 | 1% |
| Object location test | 12 | 1% |
| Grid walking (foot fault) | 12 | 1% |
| T-maze | 11 | 1% |
| Light-dark box | 11 | 1% |
| Step-down avoidance | 10 | 1% |
| Nest building | 10 | 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 8 | 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 8 | 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 8 | 1% |
| Cylinder test | 7 | 1% |
| Hot plate | 7 | 1% |
| Hole-board | 6 | 1% |
| Social interaction test | 6 | 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 5 | 1% |
| Self-grooming | 5 | 1% |
| Adhesive removal test | 4 | under 1% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 4 | under 1% |
| Self-administration | 4 | under 1% |
| Elevated zero maze | 3 | under 1% |
| Pole test | 3 | under 1% |
| Acetone test | 3 | under 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 3 | under 1% |
| Formalin test | 3 | under 1% |
| Splash test | 3 | under 1% |
| Novel tank test | 2 | under 1% |
| Puzzle box | 2 | under 1% |
| Rotational behavior (rotometer) | 2 | under 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 2 | under 1% |
| Tail flick | 2 | under 1% |
| Active place avoidance | 1 | under 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% |
| Radial arm water maze | 1 | under 1% |
| Burrowing | 1 | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% |
| Three-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 1 | under 1% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 1 | under 1% |
| Cold plate | 1 | under 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 1 | under 1% |
| Predator odor exposure | 1 | under 1% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 1 | under 1% |
| Corner test | 1 | under 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 1 | under 1% |
| Writhing test | 1 | under 1% |
| Social approach and avoidance | 1 | under 1% |
Tests named in 30 or more of these papers link to a page on that test with exercise. To count the papers that mention two or more tests together, use the test battery tool.
Papers by year
Animal research papers that mention exercise 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 | 15 |
| 2002 | 3 |
| 2003 | 17 |
| 2004 | 30 |
| 2005 | 23 |
| 2006 | 33 |
| 2007 | 36 |
| 2008 | 41 |
| 2009 | 52 |
| 2010 | 64 |
| 2011 | 61 |
| 2012 | 76 |
| 2013 | 102 |
| 2014 | 111 |
| 2015 | 128 |
| 2016 | 138 |
| 2017 | 146 |
| 2018 | 154 |
| 2019 | 184 |
| 2020 | 170 |
| 2021 | 186 |
| 2022 | 186 |
| 2023 | 166 |
| 2024 | 188 |
| 2025 | 190 |
| 2026 (part year) | 158 |
Papers that mention exercise and a test fell from 186 in 2021 to 166 in 2023, then rose to 190 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 exercise
Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 916 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 916 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
91 of the 916 papers (10%) had NIH funding. NIA, the National Institute on Aging, funded the most, 24 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 exercise and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.
Mol Aspects Med, 2024. 117 citations.
Geroscience, 2022. 86 citations.
J Neuroinflammation, 2023. 69 citations.
Transl Psychiatry, 2021. 57 citations.
Food Funct, 2021. 57 citations.
How we counted
A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions exercise 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 exercise only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low.
A treadmill or running wheel is often the exercise itself, so the treadmill and running wheel tests do not count as tests mentioned with exercise.
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 exercise 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
- 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
- Environmental enrichment 295 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 exercise [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/exercise
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_exercise_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests with exercise},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/exercise},
note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}Equipment in our store
For studies with exercise, our store sells:
Apparatus for the tests
Our store sells apparatus for all the 10 tests these papers mention most.
