Research data · Brain technique
Transcranial stimulation
From 2021 to 2025, 152 animal research papers mentioned transcranial stimulation and at least one behavioral test.
That is 3.9 times the 39 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 transcranial stimulation
Each bar is one test, with how many of the 152 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 44 tests these papers mention
| Test | Papers | Share of the 152 papers |
|---|---|---|
| Morris water maze | 25 | 16% |
| Novel object recognition | 25 | 16% |
| Open field | 22 | 14% |
| Y-maze | 20 | 13% |
| Forced swim test | 12 | 8% |
| Von Frey test | 12 | 8% |
| Rotarod | 11 | 7% |
| Fear conditioning | 10 | 7% |
| Elevated plus maze | 10 | 7% |
| Hot plate | 10 | 7% |
| Sucrose preference test | 10 | 7% |
| Grip strength | 6 | 4% |
| Treadmill running | 6 | 4% |
| Beam walking | 5 | 3% |
| Grid walking (foot fault) | 5 | 3% |
| Tail suspension test | 5 | 3% |
| Gait analysis | 4 | 3% |
| Object location test | 4 | 3% |
| Barnes maze | 4 | 3% |
| Self-administration | 3 | 2% |
| Conditioned place preference | 3 | 2% |
| Passive avoidance | 3 | 2% |
| T-maze | 3 | 2% |
| Rotational behavior (rotometer) | 3 | 2% |
| Cylinder test | 3 | 2% |
| Three-chamber sociability test | 2 | 1% |
| Operant conditioning | 2 | 1% |
| Wire hang and inverted grid | 2 | 1% |
| Skilled reaching | 2 | 1% |
| Hole-board | 2 | 1% |
| Self-grooming | 2 | 1% |
| Corner test | 1 | 1% |
| Pole test | 1 | 1% |
| Prepulse inhibition and acoustic startle | 1 | 1% |
| Step-down avoidance | 1 | 1% |
| Catalepsy bar test | 1 | 1% |
| Attentional set shifting | 1 | 1% |
| Tail flick | 1 | 1% |
| Paw pressure test | 1 | 1% |
| Ladder rung walking | 1 | 1% |
| Active avoidance (shuttle box) | 1 | 1% |
| Wheel running | 1 | 1% |
| Plus maze for place and response learning | 1 | 1% |
| Social interaction test | 1 | 1% |
To count the papers that mention two or more tests together, use the test battery tool.
Papers by year
Animal research papers that mention transcranial stimulation 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 | 1 |
| 2002 | 4 |
| 2003 | 3 |
| 2004 | 3 |
| 2005 | 6 |
| 2006 | 2 |
| 2007 | 3 |
| 2008 | 1 |
| 2009 | 1 |
| 2010 | 3 |
| 2011 | 3 |
| 2012 | 7 |
| 2013 | 7 |
| 2014 | 11 |
| 2015 | 11 |
| 2016 | 10 |
| 2017 | 13 |
| 2018 | 18 |
| 2019 | 23 |
| 2020 | 19 |
| 2021 | 32 |
| 2022 | 29 |
| 2023 | 29 |
| 2024 | 31 |
| 2025 | 31 |
| 2026 (part year) | 41 |
Disease models in papers that mention transcranial stimulation
Each bar is one disease model, with how many of the 152 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 152 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
11 of the 152 papers (7%) had NIH funding. NIMH, the National Institute of Mental Health, funded the most, 5 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 transcranial stimulation and a behavioral test and have the most citations, as counted by NIH's iCite on November 5, 2026. We show four of the five most cited papers and leave out one because of words in its title.
Redox Biol, 2022. 88 citations.
Stroke, 2022. 71 citations.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, 2021. 49 citations.
Aging Dis, 2021. 45 citations.
How we counted
A paper counts here when it is animal research and its title or abstract mentions transcranial stimulation 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 transcranial stimulation only in its methods is missed, so the count runs low.
We count transcranial stimulation only in papers that also mention a behavioral test, since a test is a sign that the animals were stimulated.
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 transcranial stimulation 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
- Intranasal delivery 299 papers
- EEG and ECoG 265 papers
- Intrathecal injection 257 papers
- Fiber photometry 177 papers
- Microdialysis 133 papers
How to cite
APA
ConductScience. (2026, November 13). Behavioral tests with transcranial stimulation [Data set]. https://conductscience.com/resources/data/brain-techniques/transcranial-stimulation
BibTeX
@misc{conductscience_transcranial_stimulation_2026,
author = {{ConductScience}},
title = {Behavioral tests with transcranial stimulation},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://conductscience.com/resources/data/brain-techniques/transcranial-stimulation},
note = {Data set, released November 13, 2026},
}Shop apparatus by test
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