Research data · Disease model and test
Light-dark box in psychological stress research
From 2021 to 2025, 58 animal research papers on psychological stress mentioned the light-dark box in their title or abstract.
That is 1.1 times the 51 papers of 2011 to 2015. Between the same two periods, the papers on psychological stress that mention any of the 90 tests we count fell 10%.
Papers by year
Animal research papers on psychological stress 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 | 4 |
| 2002 | 3 |
| 2003 | 3 |
| 2004 | 2 |
| 2005 | 7 |
| 2006 | 4 |
| 2007 | 6 |
| 2008 | 5 |
| 2009 | 6 |
| 2010 | 14 |
| 2011 | 9 |
| 2012 | 11 |
| 2013 | 8 |
| 2014 | 12 |
| 2015 | 11 |
| 2016 | 17 |
| 2017 | 10 |
| 2018 | 14 |
| 2019 | 13 |
| 2020 | 18 |
| 2021 | 13 |
| 2022 | 8 |
| 2023 | 14 |
| 2024 | 10 |
| 2025 | 13 |
| 2026 (part year) | 15 |
Papers on psychological stress that mention the light-dark box fell from 13 in 2021 to 8 in 2022, then rose to 13 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 58 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.
Species
Tests mentioned alongside the light-dark box
Each bar is one test, with how many of the 58 papers also mention it, and what share that is. Of these papers, 5 (9%) 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 psychological stress.
We tell whether a paper studies psychological stress 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 psychological stress research names the subject headings we count as psychological stress. 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 psychological stress that mention other tests
- Forced swim test 627 papers
- Sucrose preference test 477 papers
- Open field 384 papers
- Elevated plus maze 324 papers
- Tail suspension test 292 papers
- Fear conditioning 100 papers
- Morris water maze 93 papers
- Novel object recognition 77 papers
- Social interaction test 75 papers
- Novelty-suppressed feeding 64 papers
- Passive avoidance 40 papers
- Predator odor exposure 40 papers
- Y-maze 39 papers
- Self-administration 36 papers
- Conditioned place preference 34 papers
- Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle 34 papers
- Social approach and avoidance 30 papers
- Splash test 30 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 psychological stress research ranks the tests by their papers on psychological stress.
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Light-dark box in psychological stress research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/stress/light-dark-box
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_stress_light_dark_box_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Light-dark box in psychological stress research},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/models/stress/light-dark-box},
note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
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