Research data · Animal model

Kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures

From 2021 to 2025, 161 animal research papers mentioned kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures and at least one behavioral test.

That is 1.5 times the 111 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.

161 animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 mentioned kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures and a test
1.5 times as many papers as in 2011 to 2015
37% of these papers mention the Morris water maze
14% of the 1,140 animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures also mention a test

The tests mentioned with kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures

The Morris water maze appears in 37% of these papers and in 17% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 2.2 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 161 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

59 papers 37%
20 papers 12%
19 papers 12%
18 papers 11%
16 papers 10%
11 papers 7%
10 papers 6%
6 papers 4%
5 papers 3%
4 papers 2%
All 39 tests these papers mention
Papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures and each test
TestPapersShare of the 161 papers
Morris water maze5937%
Novel object recognition3019%
Open field2012%
Elevated plus maze1912%
Y-maze1811%
Rotarod1610%
Barnes maze117%
Forced swim test106%
Passive avoidance96%
Sucrose preference test74%
T-maze64%
Tail suspension test53%
Radial arm maze53%
Operant conditioning42%
Light-dark box42%
Elevated zero maze42%
Fear conditioning42%
Active avoidance (shuttle box)32%
Splash test21%
Treadmill running21%
Nest building21%
Grip strength21%
Beam walking21%
Wheel running21%
Novelty-suppressed feeding11%
Cylinder test11%
Adhesive removal test11%
Rotational behavior (rotometer)11%
Three-chamber sociability test11%
Resident-intruder test11%
Hot plate11%
Object location test11%
Von Frey test11%
Gait analysis11%
Marble burying11%
Catalepsy bar test11%
Tail flick11%
Wire hang and inverted grid11%
Grid walking (foot fault)11%

Tests named in 30 or more of these papers link to a page on that test with kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures. To count the papers that mention two or more tests together, use the test battery tool.

Papers by year

Animal research papers that mention kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures 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
Papers by year
YearPapers
200113
200221
200321
200414
200519
20069
200712
200822
200916
201023
201124
201221
201328
201417
201521
201640
201730
201839
201943
202029
202134
202229
202320
202434
202544
2026 (part year)32

Papers that mention kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures and a test fell from 34 in 2021 to 20 in 2023, then rose to 44 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 kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures

Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 161 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 161 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.

Species

Rat
96 papers 60%
Mouse
63 papers 39%
Other animals
6 papers 4%
Zebrafish
1 paper 1%
Nonhuman primate
1 paper 1%

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

NIH funding

18 of the 161 papers (11%) had NIH funding. NINDS, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, funded the most, 14 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

NINDSNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
14 papers 78%
NIANational Institute on Aging
3 papers 17%
NIDCDNational Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
1 paper 6%
NICHDEunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
1 paper 6%
NIDDKNational Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
1 paper 6%
NIEHSNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
1 paper 6%

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 kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.

  1. Quercetin alleviates kainic acid-induced seizure by inhibiting the Nrf2-mediated ferroptosis pathway.

    Free Radic Biol Med, 2022. 109 citations.

  2. Captopril alleviates epilepsy and cognitive impairment by attenuation of C3-mediated inflammation and synaptic phagocytosis.

    J Neuroinflammation, 2022. 69 citations.

  3. Small Extracellular Vesicles in Milk Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier in Murine Cerebral Cortex Endothelial Cells and Promote Dendritic Complexity in the Hippocampus and Brain Function in C57BL/6J Mice.

    Front Nutr, 2022. 54 citations.

  4. Microglia proliferation plays distinct roles in acquired epilepsy depending on disease stages.

    Epilepsia, 2021. 52 citations.

  5. Mitochondrial transplantation ameliorates hippocampal damage following status epilepticus.

    Animal Model Exp Med, 2023. 39 citations.

How we counted

A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures 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 kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures 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 kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures 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.

How to cite

APA

ConductScience. (2026, November 13). Behavioral tests with kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/kainic-acid-pilocarpine

BibTeX

@misc{conductscience_kainic_acid_pilocarpine_2026,
  author = {{ConductScience}},
  title = {Behavioral tests with kainic acid or pilocarpine seizures},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/kainic-acid-pilocarpine},
  note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}

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