Improving reproducibility in animal research by splitting the study population into several \u2018mini-experiments\u2019

Vanessa Tabea Von Kortzfleisch,Natasha A Karp,Sylvia Kaiser,Rupert Palme,S Helene Richter,Norbert Sachser

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-73503-4

Vanessa Tabea Von Kortzfleisch, Natasha A Karp + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73503-4

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Abstract

In light of the hotly discussed ‘reproducibility crisis’, a rethinking of current methodologies appears essential. Implementing multi-laboratory designs has been shown to enhance the external validity and hence the reproducibility of findings from animal research. We here aimed at proposing a new experimental strategy that transfers this logic into a single-laboratory setting. We systematically introduced heterogeneity into our study population by splitting an experiment into several ‘mini-experiments’ spread over different time points a few weeks apart. We hypothesised to observe improved reproducibility in such a ‘mini-experiment’ design in comparison to a conventionally standardised design, according to which all animals are tested at one specific point in time. By comparing both designs across independent replicates, we could indeed show that the use of such a ‘mini-experiment’ design improved the reproducibility and accurate detection of exemplary treatment effects (behavioural and physiological differences between four mouse strains) in about half of all investigated strain comparisons. Thus, we successfully implemented and empirically validated an easy-to-handle strategy to tackle poor reproducibility in single-laboratory studies. Since other experiments within different life science disciplines share the main characteristics with the investigation reported here, these studies are likely to also benefit from this approach.

Highlights

Concerns about the credibility of scientific results have become a major issue over the last years (e.g. Refs.[1,2,3,4])
The above described examination was done in two experimental designs, namely a mini-experiment design and a conventional design, which were compared with respect to their effectiveness in terms of reproducibility
We aimed at transferring this logic to single laboratories to introduce likewise heterogeneity in the study population in a systematic and controlled way

Summary

Introduction

Concerns about the credibility of scientific results have become a major issue over the last years (e.g. Refs.[1,2,3,4]) This is aptly reflected by a recent survey of the Nature publishing group, which reported that over 90% of the interviewed researchers were convinced that science currently faces a ‘reproducibility crisis’[5]. Solutions are urgently needed to tackle the problem of poor reproducibility at the level of single-laboratory studies Against this background, the overall idea of the present study was to design an experimental strategy that transfers the multi-laboratory logic into a single-laboratory setting, and at the same time offers a high degree of practical relevance

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