Animal Behavior Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
School of Arts & Sciences, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2022 Jun;47(7):1285-1291. doi: 10.1038/s41386-022-01309-1. Epub 2022 Mar 25.
The field of neuropsychopharmacology relies on behavioral assays to quantify behavioral processes related to mental illness and substance use disorders. Although these assays have been highly informative, sometimes laboratories have unpublished datasets from experiments that "didn't work". Often this is because expected outcomes were not observed in positive or negative control groups. While this can be due to experimenter error, an important alternative is that under-appreciated environmental factors can have a major impact on results. "Hidden variables" such as circadian cycles, husbandry, and social environments are often omitted in methods sections, even though there is a strong body of literature documenting their impact on physiological and behavioral outcomes. Applying this knowledge in a more critical manner could provide behavioral neuroscientists with tools to develop better testing methods, improve the external validity of behavioral techniques, and make better comparisons of experimental data across institutions. Here we review the potential impact of "hidden variables" that are commonly overlooked such as light-dark cycles, transport stress, cage ventilation, and social housing structure. While some of these conditions may not be under direct control of investigators, it does not diminish the potential impact of these variables on experimental results. We provide recommendations to investigators on which variables to report in publications and how to address "hidden variables" that impact their experimental results.
神经精神药理学领域依赖行为测定来量化与精神疾病和物质使用障碍相关的行为过程。尽管这些测定具有高度的信息性，但有时实验室会有未发表的实验数据集，这些数据集来自于“未成功”的实验。通常这是因为在阳性或阴性对照组中没有观察到预期的结果。虽然这可能是由于实验者的错误，但一个重要的替代原因是，未被充分认识的环境因素可能会对结果产生重大影响。“隐藏变量”，如昼夜节律、饲养和社会环境，在方法部分经常被忽略，尽管有大量文献记录了它们对生理和行为结果的影响。以更具批判性的方式应用这些知识，可以为行为神经科学家提供工具，以开发更好的测试方法，提高行为技术的外部有效性，并在不同机构之间更好地比较实验数据。在这里，我们回顾了一些常见的被忽视的“隐藏变量”，如明暗周期、运输应激、笼通风和社会住房结构，它们可能产生的潜在影响。虽然这些条件中的一些可能不受研究人员的直接控制，但这并没有降低这些变量对实验结果的潜在影响。我们向研究人员提供了有关在出版物中报告哪些变量以及如何解决影响其实验结果的“隐藏变量”的建议。
