ReviewJournal of translational medicine2025
Quality, topics, and demographic trends of animal systematic reviews - an umbrella review.
Review in Journal of translational medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The 5% Problem: How the Biomedical Community Responded to the Animal-to-Human Translation Crisis, and the Case for Non-Animal Methods.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Review
- How long does it take to complete and publish a systematic review of animal studies?BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Use and reporting of systematic review methodology in EFSA scientific opinions on animal health and welfare.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAnimal systematic reviews are critical to inform translational research. Despite their growing popularity, there is a notable lack of information on their quality, scope, and geographical distribution over time. Addressing this gap is important to maintain their effectiveness in fostering medical advancements.
objectiveThis study aimed to assess the quality and demographic trends of animal systematic reviews in neuroscience, including changes over time.
methodsWe performed an umbrella review of animal systematic reviews, searching Medline and Embase for reviews until January 27, 2023. A data mining method was developed and validated to automatically evaluate the quality of these reviews.
resultsFrom 18'065 records identified, we included 1'358 animal systematic reviews in our study. These reviews commonly focus on translational research but with notable topical gaps such as schizophrenia, other psychiatric disorders, and brain tumours. They originate from 64 countries, with the United States, China, the UK, Brazil, and Iran being the most prolific. The automated quality assessment indicated high reliability, with F1-scores over 80% for most criteria. Overall, the reviews were of high quality and the quality improved over time. However, many systematic reviews did not report a pre-registered study protocol. Reviews with a pre-registered protocol generally scored higher in quality. No significant differences in quality were observed between countries.
conclusionAnimal systematic reviews in neuroscience are of overall of high quality. Our study highlights specific areas for enhancement such as the recommended pre-publication of study protocols. It also identifies under-represented topics that could benefit from further investigation to inform translational research. Such measures can contribute to the effective translation of animal research findings to clinical applications.
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.