@article{dbfb6c469f3e4de880e3c2e246da123d,
title = "Increasing the statistical power of animal experiments with historical control data",
abstract = "Low statistical power reduces the reliability of animal research; yet, increasing sample sizes to increase statistical power is problematic for both ethical and practical reasons. We present an alternative solution using Bayesian priors based on historical control data, which capitalizes on the observation that control groups in general are expected to be similar to each other. In a simulation study, we show that including data from control groups of previous studies could halve the minimum sample size required to reach the canonical 80% power or increase power when using the same number of animals. We validated the approach on a dataset based on seven independent rodent studies on the cognitive effects of early-life adversity. We present an open-source tool, RePAIR, that can be widely used to apply this approach and increase statistical power, thereby improving the reliability of animal experiments.",
author = "{RELACS Consortium} and V. Bonapersona and H. Hoijtink and M. Abbinck and Baram, {T. Z.} and Bolton, {J. L.} and J. Bordes and J. Knop and A. Korosi and Krugers, {H. J.} and Li, {J. T.} and Naninck, {E. F.G.} and K. Reemst and Ruigrok, {S. R.} and Schmidt, {M. V.} and Umeoka, {E. H.L.} and Walker, {C. D.} and Wang, {X. D.} and Yam, {K. Y.} and Sarabdjitsingh, {R. A.} and M. Jo{\"e}ls",
note = "Funding Information: We thank J. Knop and M. Sep for helpful discussions and R. de Kloet for critically reviewing the manuscript. This work was supported by the Consortium of Individual Development (CID), which is funded by the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant no. 024.001.003). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.",
year = "2021",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1038/s41593-020-00792-3",
language = "English",
volume = "24",
pages = "470--477",
journal = "Nature Neuroscience",
issn = "1097-6256",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "4",
}