ArticleLab animal2017
Laboratory environmental factors and pain behavior: the relevance of unknown unknowns to reproducibility and translation.
Article in Lab animal, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 69 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- The evolving neurobiology of early-life stress.Neuron · 2025Review
- Translational validity of quantitative sensory testing in chronic pain neuro-sensitization: guide of use and interpretation in osteoarthritis animal models.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Effects of inter-individual variability in experimenters' sensitivity and training on behavioral assessment of animal models of vestibular disorders.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Predictive and concurrent validity of pain sensitivity phenotype, neuropeptidomics and neuroepigenetics in the MI-RAT osteoarthritic surgical model in rats.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
- Using mice from different breeding sites fails to improve replicability of results from single-laboratory studies.Lab animal · 2024Article
- Reproducible and fully automated testing of nocifensive behavior in mice.Cell reports methods · 2023Article
- An automaton for preclinical pain testing.Cell reports methods · 2023Article
- Interlaboratory comparison of an intestinal triple culture to confirm transferability and reproducibility.In vitro models · 2023Article
- Foramen lacerum impingement of trigeminal nerve root as a rodent model for trigeminal neuralgia.JCI insight · 2023Article
- Sex-differences in prostaglandin signaling: a semi-systematic review and characterization of PTGDS expression in human sensory neurons.Scientific reports · 2023Review
- Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress Model of Depression: Possible Sources of Poor Reproducibility and Latent Variables.Biology · 2022Review
- Target deconvolution studies of (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine: an elusive search.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Article
- Experimenters' sex modulates mouse behaviors and neural responses to ketamine via corticotropin releasing factor.Nature neuroscience · 2022Article
- Inconvenient truths and the usefulness of identifying unknown unknowns.Nature neuroscience · 2022Article
- Olfactory exposure to late-pregnant and lactating mice causes stress-induced analgesia in male mice.Science advances · 2022Article
- Do multiple experimenters improve the reproducibility of animal studies?PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Unified ethical principles and an animal research 'Helsinki' declaration as foundations for international collaboration.Current research in neurobiology · 2022Review
- The gut microbiome of laboratory mice: considerations and best practices for translational research.Mammalian genome : official journal of the International Mammalian Genome Society · 2021Review
- Spontaneous, Voluntary, and Affective Behaviours in Rat Models of Pathological Pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2021Article
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 at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The poor record of basic-to-clinical translation in recent decades has led to speculation that preclinical research is "irreproducible", and this irreproducibility in turn has largely been attributed to deficiencies in reporting and statistical practices. There are, however, a number of other reasonable explanations of both poor translation and difficulties in one laboratory replicating the results of another. This article examines these explanations as they pertain to preclinical pain research. I submit that many instances of apparent irreproducibility are actually attributable to interactions between the phenomena and interventions under study and "latent" environmental factors affecting the rodent subjects. These environmental variables-often causing stress, and related to both animal husbandry and the specific testing context-differ greatly between labs, and continue to be identified, suggesting that our knowledge of their existence is far from complete. In pain research in particular, laboratory stressors can produce great variability of unpredictable direction, as stress is known to produce increases (stress-induced hyperalgesia) or decreases (stress-induced analgesia) in pain depending on its parameters. Much greater attention needs to be paid to the study of the laboratory environment if replication and translation are to be improved.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.