Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32765345›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in psychology2020

The Contribution of Rat Studies to Current Knowledge of Major Depressive Disorder: Results From Citation Analysis.

Constança Carvalho, Filipa Peste, Tiago A Marques, Andrew Knight, Luís M Vicente

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Constança CarvalhoCentro de Filosofia das Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (CFCUL), Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Filipa PesteCentre for Environmental and Marine Studies, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
Tiago A MarquesCentre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, Departamento de Biologia Animal, Centro de Estatística e Aplicações, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Andrew KnightCentre for Animal Welfare, University of Winchester, Winchester, United Kingdom.
Luís M VicenteCentro de Filosofia das Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (CFCUL), Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most severe depression type and one of the leading causes of morbidity worldwide. Animal models are widely used to understand MDD etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment, but the efficacy of this research for patients has barely been systematically evaluated. Such evaluation is important given the resource consumption and ethical concerns incurred by animal use. We used the citation tracking facilities within Web of Science and Scopus to locate citations of original research papers on rats related to MDD published prior to 2013-to allow adequate time for citations-identified in PubMed and Scopus by relevant search terms. Resulting citations were thematically coded in eight categories, and descriptive statistics were calculated. 178 publications describing relevant rat studies were identified. They were cited 8,712 times. More than half (4,633) of their citations were by other animal studies. 794 (less than 10%) were by human medical papers. Citation analysis indicates that rat model research has contributed very little to the contemporary clinical understanding of MDD. This suggests a misuse of limited funding hence supporting a change in allocation of research and development funds targeting this disorder to maximise benefits for patients.

Indexed as

animal modelsanimal use alternativescitation analysismajor depressive disorderrat

Identifiers

PMID32765345
PMCPMC7381216

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.