Research data · Animal model

MPTP

From 2021 to 2025, 249 animal research papers mentioned MPTP and at least one behavioral test.

That is 1.7 times the 150 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.

249 animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 mentioned MPTP and a test
1.7 times as many papers as in 2011 to 2015
51% of these papers mention the rotarod
20% of the 1,266 animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention MPTP also mention a test

The tests mentioned with MPTP

The pole test appears in 28% of these papers and in 0.5% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 56 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 249 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

126 papers 51%
81 papers 33%
69 papers 28%
22 papers 9%
19 papers 8%
13 papers 5%
12 papers 5%
12 papers 5%
12 papers 5%
11 papers 4%
10 papers 4%
All 33 tests these papers mention
Papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention MPTP and each test
TestPapersShare of the 249 papers
Rotarod12651%
Open field8133%
Pole test6928%
Beam walking229%
Gait analysis198%
Forced swim test135%
Catalepsy bar test125%
Treadmill running125%
Morris water maze125%
Y-maze114%
Grip strength104%
Wire hang and inverted grid104%
Elevated plus maze83%
Tail suspension test62%
Sucrose preference test52%
Novel object recognition52%
Cylinder test31%
Passive avoidance31%
Rotational behavior (rotometer)31%
Negative geotaxis and climbing assays31%
Radial arm maze21%
Light-dark box21%
Adhesive removal test21%
Fear conditioning1under 1%
Step-down avoidance1under 1%
Nest building1under 1%
Hargreaves plantar test1under 1%
Three-chamber sociability test1under 1%
Wheel running1under 1%
Active avoidance (shuttle box)1under 1%
Hot plate1under 1%
Novel tank test1under 1%
Real-time place preference1under 1%

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

Papers by year

Animal research papers that mention MPTP 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
200115
20024
20039
200413
200512
20069
200718
200813
200914
201032
201123
201232
201325
201433
201537
201641
201742
201842
201950
202033
202146
202247
202340
202443
202573
2026 (part year)55

Papers that mention MPTP and a test fell from 46 in 2021 to 40 in 2023, then rose to 73 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 MPTP

Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 249 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

232 papers 93%
10 papers 4%
8 papers 3%
3 papers 1%
1 paper under 1%
1 paper under 1%

Which species the papers used

Each bar is a share of the 249 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.

Species

Mouse
230 papers 92%
Rat
20 papers 8%
Zebrafish
5 papers 2%
Fruit fly
4 papers 2%
Other animals
2 papers 1%

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

NIH funding

4 of the 249 papers (2%) had NIH funding. NIEHS, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, funded the most, 2 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

NIEHSNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
2 papers 50%
NINDSNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
1 paper 25%
NIAAANational Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
1 paper 25%
NCINational Cancer Institute
1 paper 25%

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 MPTP and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.

  1. Probiotic Clostridium butyricum ameliorated motor deficits in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease via gut microbiota-GLP-1 pathway.

    Brain Behav Immun, 2021. 227 citations.

  2. Quercetin Protects against MPP+/MPTP-Induced Dopaminergic Neuron Death in Parkinson's Disease by Inhibiting Ferroptosis.

    Oxid Med Cell Longev, 2022. 136 citations.

  3. Matrix metalloproteinase-9 inhibition prevents aquaporin-4 depolarization-mediated glymphatic dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.

    J Adv Res, 2024. 105 citations.

  4. Neuroprotective effects of short-chain fatty acids in MPTP induced mice model of Parkinson's disease.

    Exp Gerontol, 2021. 92 citations.

  5. TREM2 Deficiency Aggravates NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation and Pyroptosis in MPTP-Induced Parkinson's Disease Mice and LPS-Induced BV2 Cells.

    Mol Neurobiol, 2024. 90 citations.

How we counted

A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions MPTP 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 MPTP 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 MPTP 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 MPTP [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/mptp

BibTeX

@misc{conductscience_mptp_2026,
  author = {{ConductScience}},
  title = {Behavioral tests with MPTP},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/animal-models/mptp},
  note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}

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