Citation

Burke DA, Whittemore SR, Magnuson DSK. J. Neurotrauma 2013; 30(10): 797-805.

Affiliation

University of Louisville, Neurological Surgery, 511 S. Floyd ST, HSC, MDR Bld, 6th Fl, Louisville, Kentucky, United States, 40202; darlene.burke@louisville.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2012.2704

PMID

23186206

Abstract

The development of successful treatments for humans after traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries (TBI, SCI) requires animal research. This effort can be hampered when promising experimental results cannot be replicated because of incorrect data analysis procedures. To identify and hopefully avoid these errors in future studies, the articles in 7 journals with the highest number of basic science central nervous system (CNS) TBI and SCI animal research studies published in 2010 (N=125 articles) were reviewed for their data analysis procedures. After identifying the most common statistical errors, the implications of those findings were demonstrated by reanalyzing previously published data from our laboratories using the identified inappropriate statistical procedures then comparing the two set of results. Overall, 70% of the articles contained at least one type of inappropriate statistical procedure. The highest percentage involved incorrect post hoc t-tests (56.4%) followed by inappropriate parametric statistics (ANOVA & t-test, 37.6%). Repeated measures analysis was inappropriately missing in 52.0% of all articles and among those with behavioral assessments, 58% were analyzed incorrectly. Reanalysis of our published data using the most common inappropriate statistical procedures resulted in a 14.1% average increase in significant effects compared to the original results. Specifically, an increase of 15.5% occurred with independent t-tests and 11.1% following incorrect post hoc t-tests. Utilizing proper statistical procedures can allow more definitive conclusions, facilitate replicability of research results and enable more accurate translation of those results to the clinic.

Language: en