Research data · Disease model
Epilepsy and seizures
From 2021 to 2025, 572 animal research papers on epilepsy and seizures mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often the Morris water maze.
That is 1.3 times the 440 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 these papers mention
Passive avoidance appears in 10% of the papers on epilepsy and seizures and in 3.5% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 2.9 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 572 papers from 2021 to 2025 on epilepsy and seizures mention it, and what share that is. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 60 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 572 papers on epilepsy and seizures | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 131 | 23% | 17% |
| Novel object recognition | 98 | 17% | 9% |
| Elevated plus maze | 93 | 16% | 9% |
| Open field | 90 | 16% | 12% |
| Rotarod | 73 | 13% | 6% |
| Passive avoidance | 59 | 10% | 4% |
| Y-maze | 53 | 9% | 6% |
| Forced swim test | 43 | 8% | 9% |
| Light-dark box | 32 | 6% | 2% |
| Barnes maze | 21 | 4% | 2% |
| T-maze | 21 | 4% | 1% |
| Tail suspension test | 19 | 3% | 4% |
| Sucrose preference test | 19 | 3% | 5% |
| Fear conditioning | 18 | 3% | 6% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 12 | 2% | 1% |
| Grip strength | 12 | 2% | 4% |
| Radial arm maze | 10 | 2% | 1% |
| Object location test | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Nest building | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Formalin test | 8 | 1% | 2% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 7 | 1% | 1% |
| Beam walking | 7 | 1% | 2% |
| Hot plate | 7 | 1% | 2% |
| Self-grooming | 7 | 1% | 1% |
| Tail flick | 6 | 1% | 2% |
| Von Frey test | 6 | 1% | 4% |
| Wheel running | 6 | 1% | 3% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 6 | 1% | 2% |
| Elevated zero maze | 6 | 1% | under 1% |
| Writhing test | 5 | 1% | 2% |
| Treadmill running | 5 | 1% | 6% |
| Marble burying | 5 | 1% | 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 5 | 1% | 3% |
| Self-administration | 4 | 1% | 4% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Hole-board | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Splash test | 4 | 1% | under 1% |
| Social interaction test | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Conditioned place preference | 3 | 1% | 3% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 3 | 1% | 1% |
| Gait analysis | 2 | under 1% | 3% |
| Resident-intruder test | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Rotational behavior (rotometer) | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 2 | under 1% | 1% |
| Step-down avoidance | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cylinder test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Active place avoidance | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Pole test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Cold plate | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Olfactory tests | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Drug discrimination | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Water Y-maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on epilepsy and seizures that mention 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 | 49 |
| 2002 | 53 |
| 2003 | 46 |
| 2004 | 46 |
| 2005 | 60 |
| 2006 | 50 |
| 2007 | 53 |
| 2008 | 52 |
| 2009 | 78 |
| 2010 | 78 |
| 2011 | 88 |
| 2012 | 87 |
| 2013 | 82 |
| 2014 | 83 |
| 2015 | 100 |
| 2016 | 135 |
| 2017 | 102 |
| 2018 | 120 |
| 2019 | 126 |
| 2020 | 117 |
| 2021 | 114 |
| 2022 | 112 |
| 2023 | 97 |
| 2024 | 117 |
| 2025 | 132 |
| 2026 (part year) | 101 |
Papers on epilepsy and seizures that mention a test fell from 114 in 2021 to 97 in 2023, then rose to 132 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 572 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.
Which papers count
A paper counts here when it is animal research, mentions at least one of the 90 tests and studies epilepsy and seizures.
MeSH terms are the subject headings the National Library of Medicine adds when it indexes a paper. A paper counts under epilepsy and seizures when its MeSH terms include one of these.
- Epilepsy, with the headings under it
- Seizures, with the headings under it
- Status Epilepticus
For a paper without MeSH terms, PubTator 3, NCBI's text-mining service, supplies the disease model when it finds the disease in the title or abstract. A paper can count under more than one disease model.
Our main page, Behavioral tests in published research, has the full method and each source's terms of use. Its downloads list each paper and its disease models.
More disease models
These disease models also have a page, with their papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention a test. Each disease model with 100 or more such papers gets one.
- Cognitive impairment and dementia 4,961 papers
- Anxiety 3,041 papers
- Depression 2,827 papers
- Pain conditions 2,617 papers
- Alzheimer disease 2,445 papers
- Substance use disorders 1,599 papers
- Psychological stress 1,484 papers
- Stroke and brain ischemia 1,278 papers
- Parkinson disease 918 papers
- Brain injury 841 papers
- Diabetes 795 papers
- Obesity and high-fat diet 761 papers
- Aging 700 papers
- Autism spectrum disorder 484 papers
- Schizophrenia and psychosis 401 papers
- Sleep loss and sleep disorders 400 papers
- Post-traumatic stress 392 papers
- Spinal cord injury 382 papers
- Multiple sclerosis and demyelination 223 papers
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 108 papers
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 107 papers
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Behavioral tests in epilepsy and seizures research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/epilepsy
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_epilepsy_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in epilepsy and seizures research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/epilepsy},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
Our store sells apparatus for all the 10 tests these papers mention most.
- Morris water maze
- Novel object recognition
- Elevated plus maze
- Open field
- Rotarod
- Passive avoidance
- Y-maze
- Forced swim test
- Light-dark box
- Barnes maze
