Research data · Motor function and endurance

Treadmill running

Name: Treadmill running in published research
Creator: ConductScience
Published: 2026-11-10

From 2021 to 2025, 2,091 animal research papers mentioned treadmill running in their title or abstract, ranking it sixth of the 90 tests we track.

That is 1.2 times the 1,734 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 about as fast, to 1.2 times as many.

Shop the apparatus See all 90 tests

animal research papers from 2021 to 2025 mentioned the test

as many papers as in 2011 to 2015

6th most mentioned of the 90 tests in 2021 to 2025

of these papers used mice and 42% used rats

Papers by year

Animal research papers that mention treadmill running, 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
Year	Papers
2001	197
2002	202
2003	201
2004	206
2005	230
2006	255
2007	219
2008	222
2009	275
2010	307
2011	293
2012	318
2013	414
2014	352
2015	357
2016	380
2017	415
2018	397
2019	442
2020	449
2021	458
2022	404
2023	393
2024	361
2025	475
2026 (part year)	444

Papers that mention treadmill running fell from 458 in 2021 to 361 in 2024, then rose to 475 in 2025. Part of this dip may come from PubMed's indexing rather than from fewer studies. When PubMed's indexing names a paper's species, we use it. 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.

Rats led every year from 2001 to 2021, and mice every year since 2022.

Papers that mention treadmill running, by species, 2001 to 2025

Mouse
Rat

Mouse Rat

Show the counts for each year and species

Papers by year, mice and rats
Year	Mouse	Rat
2001	22	93
2002	15	80
2003	25	105
2004	38	98
2005	37	100
2006	30	116
2007	42	116
2008	50	118
2009	72	133
2010	74	158
2011	82	169
2012	80	178
2013	102	259
2014	108	204
2015	117	202
2016	146	196
2017	147	222
2018	159	196
2019	175	214
2020	170	216
2021	194	207
2022	191	178
2023	186	167
2024	171	159
2025	259	177

Which species the papers used

Each bar is a share of the 2,091 papers from 2021 to 2025. A paper can use more than one species, so the shares can add to more than 100%.

Species

Mouse

1,001 48%

Rat

888 42%

Other animals

226 11%

Fruit fly

4 under 1%

Zebrafish

3 under 1%

Nonhuman primate

3 under 1%

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

Strains and genetic lines

Strain names come from the MeSH terms PubMed adds when it indexes a paper. PubMed has indexed 1,600 of the 2,091 papers, so each bar is a share of those 1,600.

C57BL mice

376 24%

Wistar rats

260 16%

Sprague-Dawley rats

214 13%

Knockout mice

71 4%

Transgenic mice

62 4%

mdx mice

29 2%

ICR mice

24 2%

Obese mice

18 1%

A paper indexed under two of these headings, such as knockout mice and a strain, counts under both.

Disease models in papers that mention treadmill running

Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 2,091 papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention treadmill running use 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

Obesity and high-fat diet

160 8%

Diabetes

114 5%

Cognitive impairment and dementia

95 5%

Spinal cord injury

75 4%

Alzheimer disease

73 3%

Stroke and brain ischemia

67 3%

61 3%

55 3%

51 2%

45 2%

Tests mentioned alongside treadmill running

Each bar is one test, with how many of the 2,091 papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention treadmill running also mention it, and what share that is.

Papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention both tests

98 5%

77 4%

72 3%

55 3%

51 2%

51 2%

32 2%

Novel object recognition

27 1%

To count the papers that mention three or more tests together, start from treadmill running in the test battery tool.

The most cited papers from 2021 to 2025

These papers from 2021 to 2025 mention treadmill running and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.

FGF21-Sirtuin 3 Axis Confers the Protective Effects of Exercise Against Diabetic Cardiomyopathy by Governing Mitochondrial Integrity.
Circulation, 2022. 222 citations.
Mechanisms of mechanical overload-induced skeletal muscle hypertrophy: current understanding and future directions.
Physiol Rev, 2023. 176 citations.
Exercise induced meteorin-like protects chondrocytes against inflammation and pyroptosis in osteoarthritis by inhibiting PI3K/Akt/NF-κB and NLRP3/caspase-1/GSDMD signaling.
Biomed Pharmacother, 2023. 164 citations.
Entorhinal cortex directs learning-related changes in CA1 representations.
Nature, 2022. 143 citations.
Aerobic exercise attenuates LPS-induced cognitive dysfunction by reducing oxidative stress, glial activation, and neuroinflammation.
Redox Biol, 2024. 121 citations.

How we counted

A count is the number of animal research papers whose title or abstract mentions one of the test's search terms. It is not a count of experiments, labs or animals.

A paper that mentions treadmill running only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low. The count includes 39 reviews. For 492 of the 2,091 papers, PubMed's indexing gave no species, so the species came from PubTator 3 finding one in the title or abstract.

This count includes papers that used a treadmill for exercise, not only as a test.

The test's search terms are in the test list download. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.

More motor function and endurance tests

These motor function and endurance tests also have a page, with their papers from 2021 to 2025. Each test with 30 or more papers gets one.

How to cite

APA

ConductScience. (2026, November 10). Treadmill running in published research [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/treadmill

BibTeX

@misc{conductscience_treadmill_2026,
  author = {{ConductScience}},
  title = {Treadmill running in published research},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/behavioral-tests/treadmill},
  note = {Data set, released November 10, 2026},
}

Apparatus for treadmill running

Our store sells three products for treadmill running.

Shop the apparatus

Papers that name our apparatus

We keep our own list of published papers whose text names our equipment. Those that mention treadmill running in the title or abstract are already in the counts above.

22 papers from 2021 to 2026 name our Rodent Treadmill. See the papers