ArticleBMC neuroscience2010
The problem of pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis?
Article in BMC neuroscience, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 161 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
161 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A host of issues: pseudoreplication in host-microbiota studies.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Pooled it
- Acoustic indices as proxies for biodiversity: a meta-analysis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Pooled it
- Conventional laboratory housing increases morbidity and mortality in research rodents: results of a meta-analysis.BMC biology · 2022Pooled it
- The intrinsic plasticity of medial vestibular nucleus neurons during vestibular compensation-a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Exposure of laboratory animals to small air ions: a systematic review of biological and behavioral studies.Biomedical engineering online · 2018Pooled it
- The Relationships Between Internal and External Measures of Training Load and Intensity in Team Sports: A Meta-Analysis.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2018Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Improving basic and translational science by accounting for litter-to-litter variation in animal models.BMC neuroscience · 2013Pooled it
- Trial
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101 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
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPseudoreplication occurs when observations are not statistically independent, but treated as if they are. This can occur when there are multiple observations on the same subjects, when samples are nested or hierarchically organised, or when measurements are correlated in time or space. Analysis of such data without taking these dependencies into account can lead to meaningless results, and examples can easily be found in the neuroscience literature.
resultsA single issue of Nature Neuroscience provided a number of examples and is used as a case study to highlight how pseudoreplication arises in neuroscientific studies, why the analyses in these papers are incorrect, and appropriate analytical methods are provided. 12% of papers had pseudoreplication and a further 36% were suspected of having pseudoreplication, but it was not possible to determine for certain because insufficient information was provided.
conclusionsPseudoreplication can undermine the conclusions of a statistical analysis, and it would be easier to detect if the sample size, degrees of freedom, the test statistic, and precise p-values are reported. This information should be a requirement for all publications.
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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.