European journal of clinical investigation
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · Feb 2019
Ecological fallacy as a novel risk factor for poor translation in neuroscience research: A systematic review and simulation study.
Translational neuroscience is largely concerned with establishing causal links between biological processes and functional outcomes. Exciting new methods have emerged and top-tier biomedical journals are placing increasingly high demand for experiments that link outcomes. One pitfall to making these connections is the "ecological fallacy"-establishing a relationship between outcomes based on aggregate (averaged) results (a distinct issue from correlation vs causation). ⋯ Ecological fallacy is highly prevalent in neuroscience research and could partially account for translation failures in this field. Reporting guidelines for in vivo experiments should include subject-level correlation analyses for the primary outcomes.