ReviewNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews2012
The use of a running wheel to measure activity in rodents: relationship to energy balance, general activity, and reward.
Review in Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 152 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
152 citing papers in PubMed, 314 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dissociation Between Functional Performance and Structural Joint Damage Following Sertraline Treatment in Collagen-Induced Arthritis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
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- Voluntary wheel running in male mice mitigates select hyperglycemia-induced depressive-like behaviors and modulates BDNF andBrain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Voluntary Wheel Running as Refinement Tool for Postoperative Severity Assessment and Humane Endpoint Detection in Rats with Brain Tumors.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Examining non-reinforced lever pressing as intrinsically-motivated behavior.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Hepatic ketogenic insufficiency blunts exercise-induced energy expenditure and alters mitochondrial proteins in skeletal muscle.Function (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- A mouse model to study persistent fatigue.Research square · 2026Article
- Aging reduces motivation through decreased Bdnf expression in the ventral tegmental area.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Non-invasive ovulation tracking enables genetic engineering in wild rodents.Cell reports methods · 2026Article
- Pilot Investigation on the Metabolic Effects ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Presence of a home cage running wheel, but not wheel running per se, decreases social motivation in adult C57BL/6J female mice.PloS one · 2026Article
- The impact of housing and high-fructose diet on behavior and cardiovascular response to eucalyptus wildfire smoke in WKY rats.Journal of toxicology and environmental health. Part A · 2026Article
- Voluntary exercise increases striatal dopamine release and improves motor performance in aging mice.NPJ Parkinson's disease · 2025Article
- The GLP-1R Agonist Semaglutide Reduces Motivated Running and Alters Dopamine Dynamics in the Nucleus Accumbens.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Protective exercise responses in the dentate gyrus of Alzheimer's disease mouse model revealed with single-nucleus RNA-sequencing.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neuromedin U Deficiency Disrupts Daily Testosterone Fluctuation and Reduces Wheel-Running Activity in Rats.Endocrinology · 2025Article
- Polarized or threshold training: is there a superior training intensity distribution to improve V̇OJournal of physiology and biochemistry · 2025Article
- Circadian patterns of behaviour change during pregnancy in mice.The Journal of physiology · 2024Article
- Light sampling behaviour regulates circadian entrainment in mice.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Article
92 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Running wheels are commonly employed to measure rodent physical activity in a variety of contexts, including studies of energy balance and obesity. There is no consensus on the nature of wheel-running activity or its underlying causes, however. Here, we will begin by systematically reviewing how running wheel availability affects physical activity and other aspects of energy balance in laboratory rodents. While wheel running and physical activity in the absence of a wheel commonly correlate in a general sense, in many specific aspects the two do not correspond. In fact, the presence of running wheels alters several aspects of energy balance, including body weight and composition, food intake, and energy expenditure of activity. We contend that wheel-running activity should be considered a behavior in and of itself, reflecting several underlying behavioral processes in addition to a rodent's general, spontaneous activity. These behavioral processes include defensive behavior, predatory aggression, and depression- and anxiety-like behaviors. As it relates to energy balance, wheel running engages several brain systems-including those related to the stress response, mood, and reward, and those responsive to growth factors-that influence energy balance indirectly. We contend that wheel-running behavior represents factors in addition to rodents' tendency to be physically active, engaging additional neural and physiological mechanisms which can then independently alter energy balance and behavior. Given the impact of wheel-running behavior on numerous overlapping systems that influence behavior and physiology, this review outlines the need for careful design and interpretation of studies that utilize running wheels as a means for exercise or as a measurement of general physical activity.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.