ReviewJournal of neuroscience methods2024
Practical solutions for including sex as a biological variable (SABV) in preclinical neuropsychopharmacological research.
Review in Journal of neuroscience methods, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 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
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Animal models of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Unpacking Ventral Pallidum GABA Neuron Contributions to Opioid Drug Reward in Rats.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Epigenetic Control of Stress-Induced Depression: Emerging Roles of HDAC3 and HDAC6.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Review
- Single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of sexually dimorphic molecular responses to sub-chronic variable stress in the mouse hippocampus.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Early-life adversity in rodents: Experimental design is of the essence.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Gendering the Menstrual Cycle in Behavioral Neuroendocrinology.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Review
- High incidence of estrous cycle irregularities in heterogeneous stock (HS) rats is associated with footshock-resistant cocaine intake.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Sex Differences in Dietary-Induced Liver Steatosis and Insulin Receptor-Related Signaling in Aged Mice Lacking Serotonin Transporter.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Methamphetamine and α-pyrrolidinopentiophenone (α-PVP) intravenous self-administration in female and male rats.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Methamphetamine and α-pyrrolidinopentiophenone (α-PVP) Intravenous Self-Administration in Female and Male Rats.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Prefrontal cortex-nucleus reuniens-hippocampus network exhibits sex-differentiated responses to stress and antidepressant treatment in rats.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Mapping sex and gender in the landscape of spinal cord injury research: a bibliometric analysis and research framework.Spinal cord · 2025Article
- Hypoxia-ischemia and sexual dimorphism: modeling mitochondrial dysfunction using brain organoids.Cell & bioscience · 2025Review
- Acute and vicarious effects of social defeat stress on social behaviour in California mice,Animal behaviour · 2025Article
- Sub-chronic stress exerts partially distinct behavioral and epigenetic effects in male and female mice.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Sex differences in morphine sensitivity of neuroligin-3 knockout mice.Psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Zoographics in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior: Increasing inclusion of female animals.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2024Article
- Sucrose binge-eating and increased anxiety-like behavior in Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to repeated LPS administration followed by chronic mild unpredictable stress.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Cannabidiol or ketamine for preventing the impact of adolescent early drug initiation on voluntary ethanol consumption in adulthood.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 13 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Recently, many funding agencies have released guidelines on the importance of considering sex as a biological variable (SABV) as an experimental factor, aiming to address sex differences and avoid possible sex biases to enhance the reproducibility and translational relevance of preclinical research. In neuroscience and pharmacology, the female sex is often omitted from experimental designs, with researchers generalizing male-driven outcomes to both sexes, risking a biased or limited understanding of disease mechanisms and thus potentially ineffective therapeutics. Herein, we describe key methodological aspects that should be considered when sex is factored into in vitro and in vivo experiments and provide practical knowledge for researchers to incorporate SABV into preclinical research. Both age and sex significantly influence biological and behavioral processes due to critical changes at different timepoints of development for males and females and due to hormonal fluctuations across the rodent lifespan. We show that including both sexes does not require larger sample sizes, and even if sex is included as an independent variable in the study design, a moderate increase in sample size is sufficient. Moreover, the importance of tracking hormone levels in both sexes and the differentiation between sex differences and sex-related strategy in behaviors are explained. Finally, the lack of robust data on how biological sex influences the pharmacokinetic (PK), pharmacodynamic (PD), or toxicological effects of various preclinically administered drugs to animals due to the exclusion of female animals is discussed, and methodological strategies to enhance the rigor and translational relevance of preclinical research are proposed.
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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.