Between-litter variation in developmental studies of hormones and behavior: Inflated false positives and diminished power

Williams, Donald R.; Carlsson, Rickard; Bürkner, Paul‐Christian

doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2017.08.003

Cited by 30 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…We applied linear mixed-effects models (LMM) based on restricted maximum likelihood estimates using the package lme4 (Bates, Maechler, Bolker, & Walker, 2015). See text for statistics siblings, and thus to avoid an increased risk of false positive results (Williams, Carlsson, & Bürkner, 2017). Sibling differences in body mass were calculated as the deviation from the litter mean (Bautista, Zepeda, et al, 2015;Rödel, Bautista, Roder, Gilbert, & Hudson, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pups from 12 litters (n = 6 pups per litter, ntotal = 72) were put separately into small boxes at room temperature (21 ± 0.5°C) for 5 min on different postnatal days and the dynamic of their peripheral body temperature was recorded using an infrared thermal camera. See text for statistics siblings, and thus to avoid an increased risk of false positive results (Williams, Carlsson, & Bürkner, 2017). We also included sex as a fixed factor, in particular as some studies in rodents indicate a higher thermogenic capacity in female pups (Harshaw et al, 2014;Valle, García-Palmer, Oliver, & Roca, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Individual differences in early body mass affect thermogenic performance and sibling interactions in litter huddles of the house mouse

Zepeda

Bautista

Rangassamy

et al. 2018

Developmental Psychobiology

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We asked whether within-litter differences in early body mass are associated with differences in house mouse pups' thermogenic performance and whether such variation predicts individual differences in competitive interactions for thermally more advantageous positions in the huddle. We explored pups' thermogenic performance in isolation by measuring changes in (maximal) peripheral body temperatures during a 5-min thermal challenge using infrared thermography. Changes in peripheral body temperature were significantly explained by individual differences in body mass within a litter; relatively lighter individuals showed an overall quicker temperature decrease leading to lower body temperatures toward the end of the thermal challenge compared to heavier littermates. Within the litter huddle, relatively lighter pups with a lower thermogenic performance showed consistently more rooting and climbing behavior, apparently to reach the thermally advantageous center of the huddle. This suggests that within-litter variation in starting body mass affects the pups' thermal and behavioral responses to environmental challenges.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in early body mass affect thermogenic performance and sibling interactions in litter huddles of the house mouse

Zepeda

Bautista

Rangassamy

et al. 2018

Developmental Psychobiology

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“…We then summarized p(δ S t |y) with the posterior median and highest density interval (δ S t = 0.60, 95-% HDI = [0.03, 1.20]). This effect size is like Cohen's d, but is computed with respect to ν and can be extended to more complex methods such as multilevel models (Williams, Carlsson, & Bürkner, 2017).…”

Section: Posterior Predictivementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Robust Statistics with Modern Bayesian Methods

Williams¹,

Martin²

2017

Preprint

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Developing robust statistical methods is an important goal for psychological science. Whereas classical methods (i.e., sampling distributions, p-values, etc.) have been thoroughly characterized, Bayesian robust methods remain relatively uncommon in practice and methodological literatures. Here we propose a robust Bayesian model (BHS t ) that accommodates heterogeneous (H) variances by predicting the scale parameter on the log scale and tail-heaviness with a Student-t likelihood (S t). Through simulations with normative and contaminated (i.e., heavy-tailed) data, we demonstrate that BHS t has consistent frequentist properties in terms of type I error, power, and mean squared error compared to three classical robust methods. With a motivating example, we illustrate Bayesian inferential methods such as approximate leave-one-out cross-validation and posterior predictive checks. We end by suggesting areas of improvement for BHS t and discussing Bayesian robust methods in practice.

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“…Their advice on how to estimate treatment effects when the treatment is allocated to a litter is, however, rather ambiguous. A similar paper [14] describes how litter effects are 5 ignored in behavioural neuroendocrinology. These two papers focus on the implications of ignoring litter effects on statistical inference, both in terms of generating false positive treatment effects (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pesticides and transgenerational inheritance of pathologies: Designing, analysing and reporting rodent studies

Plewis

2020

Preprint

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The evidence for transgenerational transmission of pathologies in rodents exposed to pesticides is largely based on studies with weaknesses in design and analysis and a lack of transparency in reporting the results. This paper examines these methodological and statistical issues in detail. Its particular focus is on the estimation of 'litter effects': the tendency for rodents within a litter to be more alike than rodents in different litters. Appropriate statistical models were fitted to published data from a series of widely reported studies carried out at Washington State University. These studies were amalgamated into a single dataset in order to estimate these litter effects and the associated treatment effects. Litter effects varied by outcome and were often substantial. Consequently, the effective sample size was often substantially less than the number of observations with implications for the power of the studies. Moreover, the reported precision of the estimates of treatment effects was too low. These problems are exacerbated by unexplained missing data across generations. Researchers in the life sciences could be more cognisant of the guidelines established in medicine for reporting randomised controlled trials, particularly cluster randomised trials. More attention should be paid to the design and analysis of multi-generational rodent studies; their imperfections have important implications for assessments of the evidence relating to the risks of pesticides for public health.

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Between-litter variation in developmental studies of hormones and behavior: Inflated false positives and diminished power

Cited by 30 publications

References 102 publications

Individual differences in early body mass affect thermogenic performance and sibling interactions in litter huddles of the house mouse

Individual differences in early body mass affect thermogenic performance and sibling interactions in litter huddles of the house mouse

Rethinking Robust Statistics with Modern Bayesian Methods

Pesticides and transgenerational inheritance of pathologies: Designing, analysing and reporting rodent studies

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