Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40225200›Full record

ArticleJournal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B, Statistical methodology2025

A focusing framework for testing bi-directional causal effects in Mendelian randomization.

Sai Li, Ting Ye

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B, Statistical methodology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing 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

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. The rapid growth in Mendelian randomization studies.European journal of epidemiology · 2025
    Article
  3. 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

2 authors.

Sai LiInstitute of Statistics and Big Data, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China.
Ting YeDepartment of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6009-641X

Funding

Advancing Causal Inference in Integrative Omics AnalysisR35GM155070 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · PI Ting Ye · 2024 to 2026
$1.1M
NIGMS NIH HHS R35 GM155070
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Mendelian randomization (MR) is a powerful method that uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to infer the causal effect of a modifiable exposure on an outcome. We study inference for bi-directional causal relationships and causal directions with possibly pleiotropic genetic variants. We show that assumptions for common MR methods are often impossible or too stringent given the potential bi-directional relationships. We propose a new focusing framework for testing bi-directional causal effects and it can be coupled with many state-of-the-art MR methods. We provide theoretical guarantees for our proposal and demonstrate its performance using several simulated and real datasets.

Indexed as

causal directionhypothesis testinginvalid instrumentsMendelian randomizationpleiotropy

Identifiers

PMID40225200
PMCPMC11985100

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.