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Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences

As part of an initiative to improve rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research, the U.S. National Institutes of Health now requires the consideration of sex as a biological variable in preclinical studies. This new policy has been interpreted by some as a call to compare males and females with...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia, Maney, Donna L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8562995/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34726154
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70817
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author Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia
Maney, Donna L
author_facet Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia
Maney, Donna L
author_sort Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia
collection PubMed
description As part of an initiative to improve rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research, the U.S. National Institutes of Health now requires the consideration of sex as a biological variable in preclinical studies. This new policy has been interpreted by some as a call to compare males and females with each other. Researchers testing for sex differences may not be trained to do so, however, increasing risk for misinterpretation of results. Using a list of recently published articles curated by Woitowich et al. (eLife, 2020; 9:e56344), we examined reports of sex differences and non-differences across nine biological disciplines. Sex differences were claimed in the majority of the 147 articles we analyzed; however, statistical evidence supporting those differences was often missing. For example, when a sex-specific effect of a manipulation was claimed, authors usually had not tested statistically whether females and males responded differently. Thus, sex-specific effects may be over-reported. In contrast, we also encountered practices that could mask sex differences, such as pooling the sexes without first testing for a difference. Our findings support the need for continuing efforts to train researchers how to test for and report sex differences in order to promote rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research.
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spelling pubmed-85629952021-11-03 Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia Maney, Donna L eLife Medicine As part of an initiative to improve rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research, the U.S. National Institutes of Health now requires the consideration of sex as a biological variable in preclinical studies. This new policy has been interpreted by some as a call to compare males and females with each other. Researchers testing for sex differences may not be trained to do so, however, increasing risk for misinterpretation of results. Using a list of recently published articles curated by Woitowich et al. (eLife, 2020; 9:e56344), we examined reports of sex differences and non-differences across nine biological disciplines. Sex differences were claimed in the majority of the 147 articles we analyzed; however, statistical evidence supporting those differences was often missing. For example, when a sex-specific effect of a manipulation was claimed, authors usually had not tested statistically whether females and males responded differently. Thus, sex-specific effects may be over-reported. In contrast, we also encountered practices that could mask sex differences, such as pooling the sexes without first testing for a difference. Our findings support the need for continuing efforts to train researchers how to test for and report sex differences in order to promote rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021-11-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8562995/ /pubmed/34726154 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70817 Text en © 2021, Garcia-Sifuentes and Maney https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Medicine
Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia
Maney, Donna L
Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
title Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
title_full Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
title_fullStr Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
title_full_unstemmed Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
title_short Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
title_sort reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences
topic Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8562995/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34726154
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70817
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