Research data · Animal model
Maternal separation and early-life stress
From 2021 to 2025, 343 animal research papers mentioned maternal separation and early-life stress and at least one behavioral test.
That is 1.6 times the 210 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 maternal separation and early-life stress
The sucrose preference test appears in 17% of these papers and in 4.7% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 3.5 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 343 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 49 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 343 papers |
|---|---|---|
| Forced swim test | 91 | 27% |
| Elevated plus maze | 83 | 24% |
| Open field | 72 | 21% |
| Sucrose preference test | 57 | 17% |
| Morris water maze | 29 | 8% |
| Fear conditioning | 28 | 8% |
| Tail suspension test | 23 | 7% |
| Novel object recognition | 21 | 6% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 19 | 6% |
| Self-administration | 15 | 4% |
| Social interaction test | 15 | 4% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 15 | 4% |
| Passive avoidance | 15 | 4% |
| Y-maze | 11 | 3% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 11 | 3% |
| Resident-intruder test | 10 | 3% |
| Conditioned place preference | 9 | 3% |
| Wheel running | 9 | 3% |
| Operant conditioning | 9 | 3% |
| Marble burying | 9 | 3% |
| Light-dark box | 8 | 2% |
| Splash test | 8 | 2% |
| Barnes maze | 7 | 2% |
| Elevated zero maze | 7 | 2% |
| Object location test | 6 | 2% |
| T-maze | 6 | 2% |
| Self-grooming | 5 | 1% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | 1% |
| Predator odor exposure | 4 | 1% |
| Nest building | 4 | 1% |
| Social approach and avoidance | 3 | 1% |
| Grip strength | 2 | 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 2 | 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 2 | 1% |
| Treadmill running | 2 | 1% |
| Olfactory tests | 2 | 1% |
| Von Frey test | 2 | 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 2 | 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 1 | under 1% |
| Cincinnati water maze | 1 | under 1% |
| Hole-board | 1 | under 1% |
| Elevated T-maze | 1 | under 1% |
| Looming stimulus | 1 | under 1% |
| Formalin test | 1 | under 1% |
| Rotarod | 1 | under 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 1 | under 1% |
| Cold plate | 1 | under 1% |
Tests named in 30 or more of these papers link to a page on that test with maternal separation and early-life stress. To count the papers that mention two or more tests together, use the test battery tool.
Papers by year
Animal research papers that mention maternal separation and early-life stress 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 | 8 |
| 2002 | 13 |
| 2003 | 7 |
| 2004 | 9 |
| 2005 | 24 |
| 2006 | 25 |
| 2007 | 26 |
| 2008 | 18 |
| 2009 | 34 |
| 2010 | 24 |
| 2011 | 33 |
| 2012 | 45 |
| 2013 | 40 |
| 2014 | 47 |
| 2015 | 45 |
| 2016 | 62 |
| 2017 | 58 |
| 2018 | 70 |
| 2019 | 58 |
| 2020 | 76 |
| 2021 | 91 |
| 2022 | 68 |
| 2023 | 61 |
| 2024 | 65 |
| 2025 | 58 |
| 2026 (part year) | 61 |
Disease models in papers that mention maternal separation and early-life stress
Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 343 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 343 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
68 of the 343 papers (20%) had NIH funding. NIMH, the National Institute of Mental Health, funded the most, 31 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 maternal separation and early-life stress and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.
Phytomedicine, 2022. 98 citations.
ACS Chem Neurosci, 2022. 60 citations.
Behav Neurol, 2021. 53 citations.
Transl Psychiatry, 2021. 49 citations.
Neuropsychopharmacology, 2022. 46 citations.
How we counted
A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions maternal separation and early-life stress 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 maternal separation and early-life stress 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 maternal separation and early-life stress 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
- 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 maternal separation and early-life stress [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/maternal-separation
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_maternal_separation_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests with maternal separation and early-life stress},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/maternal-separation},
note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
Our store sells apparatus for nine of the 10 tests these papers mention most, all but prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle.
