Tips and traps for behavioural animal experimentation.

Abstract

Behavioural animal experimentation is an inseparable part of research trying to understand the biological underpinnings of human behaviour, diseases and disorders. Working with animals comes with great responsibility to achieve reliable and reproducible results of highest scientific quality. In a simple step-by-step fashion, we highlight some common issues that may occur along the path to conducting behavioural animal experimentations and posit some solutions and grounds to ensure the excellence of work done in this research area while aspiring to improve conditions for laboratory animals. It entails topics of study design, animal and experimenter welfare, experimental considerations and frequentist biostatistics. At the end, we direct to some guidelines and manuals that may prove valuable to researchers in this field. Our ten simple tips and traps are meant for students who are learning about important concepts for the first time; graduates whose statistics training all too often has neglected the concept of power in experimental design; and researches who would like a light-hearted refresher on these topics. With this perspective, we hope that you will avoid falling into traps and find answers to what you always wanted to know about conducting behavioural animal experimentation.