Research data · Disease model
Obesity and high-fat diet
From 2021 to 2025, 761 animal research papers on obesity and high-fat diet mentioned at least one behavioral test, most often treadmill running.
That is 2.1 times the 370 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
Wheel running appears in 12% of the papers on obesity and high-fat diet and in 3.1% of all 32,277 papers that mention a test. That makes it 4.0 times as common in this research. Each bar is one test, with how many of the 761 papers from 2021 to 2025 on obesity and high-fat diet mention it, and what share that is. A paper that mentions two tests counts under both.
The 15 tests these papers mention most
All 59 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 761 papers on obesity and high-fat diet | Share of all 32,277 papers that mention a test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Treadmill running | 160 | 21% | 6% |
| Morris water maze | 122 | 16% | 17% |
| Wheel running | 93 | 12% | 3% |
| Novel object recognition | 90 | 12% | 9% |
| Elevated plus maze | 75 | 10% | 9% |
| Open field | 75 | 10% | 12% |
| Grip strength | 71 | 9% | 4% |
| Y-maze | 56 | 7% | 6% |
| Forced swim test | 40 | 5% | 9% |
| Sucrose preference test | 36 | 5% | 5% |
| Passive avoidance | 19 | 2% | 4% |
| Tail suspension test | 19 | 2% | 4% |
| Object location test | 18 | 2% | 1% |
| Rotarod | 17 | 2% | 6% |
| Fear conditioning | 17 | 2% | 6% |
| Operant conditioning | 13 | 2% | 3% |
| T-maze | 13 | 2% | 1% |
| Von Frey test | 13 | 2% | 4% |
| Self-administration | 12 | 2% | 4% |
| Barnes maze | 11 | 1% | 2% |
| Light-dark box | 11 | 1% | 2% |
| Marble burying | 10 | 1% | 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 9 | 1% | 1% |
| Nest building | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Social interaction test | 8 | 1% | 1% |
| Conditioned place preference | 7 | 1% | 3% |
| Elevated zero maze | 6 | 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 5 | 1% | 1% |
| Self-grooming | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Novel tank test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 4 | 1% | 1% |
| Gait analysis | 4 | 1% | 3% |
| Resident-intruder test | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Splash test | 3 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 3 | under 1% | 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 3 | under 1% | 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 3 | under 1% | 1% |
| Step-down avoidance | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 2 | under 1% | 2% |
| Olfactory tests | 2 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 2 | under 1% | 1% |
| Writhing test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Touchscreen operant tasks | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Radial arm water maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Formalin test | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Hebb-Williams maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Elevated T-maze | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Hot plate | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Predator odor exposure | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Hole-board | 1 | under 1% | 1% |
| Pole test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Beam walking | 1 | under 1% | 2% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Real-time place preference | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Tube test for social dominance | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Thermal gradient and temperature preference | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Grid walking (foot fault) | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Corner test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
| Acetone test | 1 | under 1% | under 1% |
Papers by year
Animal research papers on obesity and high-fat diet 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 | 3 |
| 2002 | 5 |
| 2003 | 8 |
| 2004 | 8 |
| 2005 | 9 |
| 2006 | 10 |
| 2007 | 10 |
| 2008 | 24 |
| 2009 | 20 |
| 2010 | 36 |
| 2011 | 42 |
| 2012 | 62 |
| 2013 | 74 |
| 2014 | 76 |
| 2015 | 116 |
| 2016 | 113 |
| 2017 | 135 |
| 2018 | 129 |
| 2019 | 142 |
| 2020 | 146 |
| 2021 | 134 |
| 2022 | 152 |
| 2023 | 140 |
| 2024 | 153 |
| 2025 | 182 |
| 2026 (part year) | 165 |
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 761 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 obesity and high-fat diet.
MeSH terms are the subject headings the National Library of Medicine adds when it indexes a paper. A paper counts under obesity and high-fat diet when its MeSH terms include one of these.
- Obesity, with the headings under it
- Pediatric Obesity
- Diet, High-Fat
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
- Aging 700 papers
- Epilepsy and seizures 572 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 obesity and high-fat diet research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/obesity
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_obesity_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests in obesity and high-fat diet research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/obesity},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
Our store sells apparatus for all the 10 tests these papers mention most.
- Treadmill running
- Morris water maze
- Wheel running
- Novel object recognition
- Elevated plus maze
- Open field
- Grip strength
- Y-maze
- Forced swim test
- Sucrose preference test
