Research data · Brain technique
Intranasal delivery
From 2021 to 2025, 299 animal research papers mentioned intranasal delivery and at least one behavioral test.
That is 2.9 times the 104 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 mentioned with intranasal delivery
Each bar is one test, with how many of the 299 papers from 2021 to 2025 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 299 papers |
|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 66 | 22% |
| Forced swim test | 46 | 15% |
| Novel object recognition | 40 | 13% |
| Open field | 37 | 12% |
| Elevated plus maze | 34 | 11% |
| Rotarod | 26 | 9% |
| Y-maze | 24 | 8% |
| Tail suspension test | 21 | 7% |
| Fear conditioning | 16 | 5% |
| Beam walking | 13 | 4% |
| Passive avoidance | 13 | 4% |
| Sucrose preference test | 12 | 4% |
| Self-administration | 9 | 3% |
| Cylinder test | 8 | 3% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 7 | 2% |
| Barnes maze | 7 | 2% |
| Von Frey test | 7 | 2% |
| Light-dark box | 7 | 2% |
| Social interaction test | 6 | 2% |
| T-maze | 6 | 2% |
| Olfactory tests | 6 | 2% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 5 | 2% |
| Gait analysis | 5 | 2% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 5 | 2% |
| Hot plate | 5 | 2% |
| Grid walking (foot fault) | 4 | 1% |
| Tail flick | 4 | 1% |
| Object location test | 4 | 1% |
| Treadmill running | 4 | 1% |
| Novelty-suppressed feeding | 4 | 1% |
| Grip strength | 4 | 1% |
| Formalin test | 3 | 1% |
| Radial arm water maze | 3 | 1% |
| Conditioned place preference | 3 | 1% |
| Wheel running | 3 | 1% |
| Splash test | 3 | 1% |
| Pole test | 3 | 1% |
| Corner test | 2 | 1% |
| Negative geotaxis and climbing assays | 2 | 1% |
| Resident-intruder test | 2 | 1% |
| Radial arm maze | 2 | 1% |
| Writhing test | 2 | 1% |
| Hargreaves plantar test | 2 | 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 2 | 1% |
| Marble burying | 2 | 1% |
| Learned helplessness | 2 | 1% |
| Adhesive removal test | 1 | under 1% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 1 | under 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 1 | under 1% |
| Predator odor exposure | 1 | under 1% |
| Elevated T-maze | 1 | under 1% |
| Self-grooming | 1 | under 1% |
| Puzzle box | 1 | under 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 1 | under 1% |
| Thermal gradient and temperature preference | 1 | under 1% |
| Five-choice serial reaction time task | 1 | under 1% |
| Nest building | 1 | under 1% |
| Acetone test | 1 | under 1% |
| Novel tank test | 1 | under 1% |
Tests named in 30 or more of these papers link to a page on that test with intranasal delivery. To count the papers that mention two or more tests together, use the test battery tool.
Papers by year
Animal research papers that mention intranasal delivery and 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 | 4 |
| 2002 | 3 |
| 2003 | 4 |
| 2004 | 7 |
| 2005 | 5 |
| 2006 | 9 |
| 2007 | 0 |
| 2008 | 15 |
| 2009 | 8 |
| 2010 | 12 |
| 2011 | 14 |
| 2012 | 19 |
| 2013 | 23 |
| 2014 | 21 |
| 2015 | 27 |
| 2016 | 34 |
| 2017 | 38 |
| 2018 | 43 |
| 2019 | 37 |
| 2020 | 49 |
| 2021 | 56 |
| 2022 | 46 |
| 2023 | 52 |
| 2024 | 65 |
| 2025 | 80 |
| 2026 (part year) | 68 |
Papers that mention intranasal delivery and a test fell from 56 in 2021 to 46 in 2022, then rose to 80 in 2025. Part of this dip may come from PubMed's indexing rather than from fewer studies. We take a paper's species from PubMed's indexing when the indexing names one. 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.
Disease models in papers that mention intranasal delivery
Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 299 papers from 2021 to 2025 are tagged with 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
Which species the papers used
Each bar is a share of the 299 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.
NIH funding
39 of the 299 papers (13%) had NIH funding. NINDS, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, funded the most, 16 of them. A paper counts as NIH-funded when its PubMed record lists an NIH grant, or when NIH RePORTER links it to an NIH project.
NIH-funded papers by institute
Each share is of the NIH-funded papers. A paper with grants from two institutes counts under both.
The most cited papers from 2021 to 2025
These papers from 2021 to 2025 mention intranasal delivery and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026.
J Neuroinflammation, 2022. 217 citations.
Front Cell Neurosci, 2021. 130 citations.
Front Pharmacol, 2023. 82 citations.
J Neuroinflammation, 2022. 69 citations.
Exp Neurol, 2021. 66 citations.
How we counted
A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions intranasal delivery and at least one of the 90 behavioral tests. A count is a number of papers, not of experiments, labs or animals. A paper that mentions intranasal delivery only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low.
Many animal research papers use the nose to give vaccines, to infect the animals or to injure the lungs, so we count intranasal delivery only in papers that also mention a behavioral test.
A paper is animal research when its MeSH terms name an animal species. If they name none, NCBI's text-mining service PubTator 3 has to find one in the title or abstract.
The search terms for intranasal delivery are in the download Animal models and brain techniques. The counts in the chart of tests are in Tests mentioned with each model or technique. The full method, with each source and its terms of use, is on our main page, Behavioral tests in published research.
More brain techniques
Each brain technique with 100 or more papers from 2021 to 2025 that mention a test has a page. These are the others, each with that count.
- Intracerebroventricular (ICV) injection 706 papers
- AAV vectors 546 papers
- Chemogenetics (DREADDs) 505 papers
- Optogenetics 443 papers
- In vivo electrophysiology 335 papers
- EEG and ECoG 265 papers
- Intrathecal injection 257 papers
- Fiber photometry 177 papers
- Transcranial stimulation 152 papers
- Microdialysis 133 papers
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 13). Behavioral tests with intranasal delivery [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/brain-techniques/intranasal
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_intranasal_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests with intranasal delivery},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/brain-techniques/intranasal},
note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
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