The DOI matches its Crossref record; 92 of the 92 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The problem of pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis?
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Pseudoreplication occurs when observations are not statistically independent, but treated as if they are. This can occur when there are multiple observations on the same subjects, when samples are nested or hierarchically organised, or when measurements are correlated in time or space. Analysis of such data without taking these dependencies into account can lead to meaningless results, and examples can easily be found in the neuroscience literature. RESULTS: A single issue of Nature Neuroscience provided a number of examples and is used as a case study to highlight how pseudoreplication arises in neuroscientific studies, why the analyses in these papers are incorrect, and appropriate analytical methods are provided. 12% of papers had pseudoreplication and a further 36% were suspected of having pseudoreplication, but it was not possible to determine for certain because insufficient information was provided. CONCLUSIONS: Pseudoreplication can undermine the conclusions of a statistical analysis, and it would be easier to detect if the sample size, degrees of freedom, the test statistic, and precise p-values are reported. This information should be a requirement for all publications.
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“Pseudoreplication has been addressed repeatedly in ecology, agriculture, psychology, and neuroscience and acknowledged as one of the most common statistical mistakes in scientific literature4–9.”
From A practical solution to pseudoreplication bias in single-cell studies (2021) · cites this paper as [8]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Reporting n = 50 in this case is an example of pseudoreplication [26].”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [26]
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“It underestimates the true variability in a study, which can lead to false positives and invalidate the analysis and resulting conclusions [26,27].”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [26]
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“Conflating experimental units with subsamples or repeated measurements can lead to artificial inflation of the sample size.”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [26]
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0
Percie du Sert, N., Ahluwalia, A., Alam, S., Avey, M. T., Baker, M., Browne, W. J., Clark, A., Cuthill, I. C., Dirnagl, U., Emerson, M., et al. (2020) · PLOS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000411 · Cited by 2,677
“Reporting n = 50 in this case is an example of pseudoreplication [26].”
BackgroundSelf-citationA call for transparent reporting to optimize the predictive value of preclinical research
Landis, S. C., Amara, S. G., Asadullah, K., Austin, C. P., Blumenstein, R., Bradley, E. W., Crystal, R. G., Darnell, R. B., Ferrante, R. J., Fillit, H., et al. (2012) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature11556 · Cited by 1,196
Self-citationExperimental design and analysis and their reporting: new guidance for publication in BJP
Curtis, M. J., Bond, R. A., Spina, D., Ahluwalia, A., Alexander, S. P. H., Giembycz, M. A., Gilchrist, A., Hoyer, D., Insel, P. A., Izzo, A. A., et al. (2015) · British Journal of Pharmacology · doi:10.1111/bph.12856 · Cited by 1,057
“This mistake is known as pseudo-replication (Lazic, 2010) and increases the chance of false positive results.”
BackgroundSuperPlots: Communicating reproducibility and variability in cell biology
Lord, S. J., Velle, K. B., Mullins, R. D., & Fritz-Laylin, L. K. (2020) · Journal of Cell Biology · doi:10.1083/jcb.202001064 · Cited by 718
“…standard error of the mean should be calculated using biological replicates—independent measurements of a population of interest, typically from independent samples or separate experiments (Hurlbert, 1984; Lazic, 2010; Vaux et al., 2012; Aarts et al., 2015; Naegle et al., 2015; Lazic et al., 2018).”
BackgroundMethodReporting animal research: Explanation and Elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2019Preprint
du Sert, N. P., Ahluwalia, A., Alam, S., Avey, M. T., Baker, M., Browne, W. J., Clark, A., Cuthill, I. C., Dirnagl, U., Emerson, M., et al. (2019) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/703355 · Cited by 557
“This may invalidate the analysis and resulting conclusions [21, 22] (see also item 7 – Statistical methods).”
BackgroundMethod
Metadata
- Authors
- Lazic, S. E.
- Affiliations
- F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Lazic, Stanley E
- ORCID
- Lazic, Stanley E
- Venue
- BMC Neuroscience
- Published
- 2010-01-14
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 5-5
- ISSN
- 1471-2202 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2817684
- OpenAlex
- W2109626712
- Cited by
- 381
- References
- 90
- Citations by year
- 2026: 68 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 12.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BMC Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- KAIST Institutional Repository (KAIST) (submittedVersion)
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Repository (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Cancer Research UK (10218)
- University of Oxford
- Cambridge Commonwealth Trust
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KUK‐C1‐013‐04)
- Korea Science and Engineering Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods and Bayesian Inference
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods in Epidemiology
- Keywords
- pseudoreplication, statistical dependence, nested data, hierarchical data, repeated measures, time series correlation, spatial correlation, statistical analysis errors, sample size reporting, degrees of freedom, p-values
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Animals, Computer Simulation, Neurosciences, Periodicals as Topic, Time Factors, Models, Statistical, Linear Models, Biomedical Research
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