Research data · Disease model and test
Light-dark box in anxiety research
From 2021 to 2025, 374 animal research papers on anxiety mentioned the light-dark box in their title or abstract.
That is 1.4 times the 277 papers of 2011 to 2015. Between the same two periods, the papers on anxiety that mention any of the 90 tests we count grew more slowly, to 1.3 times as many.
Papers by year
Animal research papers on anxiety that mention the light-dark box, 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 | 12 |
| 2002 | 21 |
| 2003 | 20 |
| 2004 | 22 |
| 2005 | 24 |
| 2006 | 24 |
| 2007 | 37 |
| 2008 | 41 |
| 2009 | 42 |
| 2010 | 42 |
| 2011 | 48 |
| 2012 | 42 |
| 2013 | 59 |
| 2014 | 59 |
| 2015 | 69 |
| 2016 | 77 |
| 2017 | 77 |
| 2018 | 65 |
| 2019 | 79 |
| 2020 | 84 |
| 2021 | 84 |
| 2022 | 70 |
| 2023 | 69 |
| 2024 | 56 |
| 2025 | 95 |
| 2026 (part year) | 78 |
Papers on anxiety that mention the light-dark box fell from 84 in 2021 to 56 in 2024, then rose to 95 in 2025. Part of this dip may come from PubMed's indexing rather than from fewer studies. Where PubMed has indexed a paper, we take its disease models from that indexing. Otherwise PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, has to find the disease in the title or abstract, or the paper is not counted here. 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.
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 374 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.
Tests mentioned alongside the light-dark box
Each bar is one test, with how many of the 374 papers also mention it, and what share that is. Of these papers, 42 (11%) mention no other test.
The 12 tests these papers mention most
Which papers count
A paper counts here when it is animal research, mentions the light-dark box in its title or abstract, and studies anxiety.
We tell whether a paper studies anxiety from its MeSH terms, the subject headings the National Library of Medicine adds when it indexes a paper. For a paper without MeSH terms, PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, has to find the disease in the title or abstract. A paper can count under more than one disease model. A paper that mentions the test only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low.
The page on anxiety research names the subject headings we count as anxiety. Download the test list for the search terms we used for the light-dark box, or the paper list for the PubMed ID of every paper behind these counts. Our main page, Behavioral tests in published research, has the full method and each source's terms of use.
More tests and disease models
Every pairing of a disease model and a test with 30 or more papers from 2021 to 2025 has a page like this one.
Papers on anxiety that mention other tests
- Elevated plus maze 1,543 papers
- Open field 982 papers
- Forced swim test 582 papers
- Novel object recognition 286 papers
- Fear conditioning 268 papers
- Tail suspension test 265 papers
- Sucrose preference test 256 papers
- Morris water maze 229 papers
- Y-maze 171 papers
- Marble burying 120 papers
- Novel tank test 106 papers
- Novelty-suppressed feeding 94 papers
- Passive avoidance 90 papers
- Social interaction test 87 papers
- Rotarod 85 papers
- Hole-board 83 papers
- Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle 81 papers
- Elevated zero maze 76 papers
- Conditioned place preference 65 papers
- Von Frey test 63 papers
- Wheel running 60 papers
- Three-chamber sociability test 53 papers
- Self-grooming 52 papers
- Treadmill running 51 papers
- Barnes maze 49 papers
- Hot plate 45 papers
- Self-administration 43 papers
- Predator odor exposure 40 papers
- Splash test 39 papers
Papers on other disease models that mention the light-dark box
The page on the light-dark box counts all the papers that mention it, whatever they study. The page on anxiety research ranks the tests by their papers on anxiety.
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Light-dark box in anxiety research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/anxiety/light-dark-box
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_anxiety_light_dark_box_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Light-dark box in anxiety research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/anxiety/light-dark-box},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
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