How stra(i)nge are your controls? : A comparative analysis of metabolic phenotypes in commonly used C57BL/6 substrains

Open Access via the PLOS Agreement Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Sex Differences in Behavior and Molecular Pathology in the 5XFAD Model

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project included funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2/EFPIA, European Quality in Preclinical Data (EQIPD) consortium under grant agreement number 777364. The authors thank Dr. Heather Buchanan and Dr. Claire Hull for their valuable help with the molecular techniques and Jack Bray for his assistance with tissue collection. We would also like to acknowledge the staff of the Medical Research Facility for their support with animal care, handling and behavioural experiments and the qPCR Core Facility at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen for use of their qPCR systems.Peer reviewedPostprin

Lights and shadows of schizophrenia therapy research : Lessons from oral risperidone and olanzapine

Peer reviewedPostprintPostprin

PEERS - an open science “Platform for the Exchange of Experimental Research Standards” in biomedicine

Funding The PEERS Consortium is currently funded by Cohen Veterans Bioscience Ltd and grants COH-0011 from Steven A. Cohen. Acknowledgements We would like to thank IJsbrand Jan Aalbersberg, Natasja de Bruin, Philippe Chamiot-Clerc, Anja Gilis, Lieve Heylen, Martine Hofmann, Patricia Kabitzke, Isabel Lefevre, Janko Samardzic, Susanne Schiffmann and Guido Steiner for their valuable input and discussions during the conceptualization of PEERS and the initial phase of the project.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

PEERS for our peers: a progress report and future directions

Many areas of non-clinical neuroscience continue to be plagued by reproducibility issues which culminate in lack of translational successes. This makes the need for robust and reproducible data emerging from preclinical research even more urgent. PEERS (Platform for Exchange of Experimental Research Standards; https://peers.preclinicaldataforum.org/) aims to be a dedicated open science, community-based initiative to guide scientists in selecting which factors are of paramount importance while designing, analysing, or reporting their neuroscience experiments. The current PEERS database includes both in vivo and in vitro experiments and lists different factors for specific ‘protocols’ which are found to be critical for the outcome of a given experiment. The platform provides a structured system to value the reliability of published references which have investigated the importance of a specific factor for a selected protocol. As a community-driven initiative, users can contribute by adding new protocols, new reviews, new references or new factors to the platform. Looking ahead, we aim to expand and adapt the PEERS platform to specific areas of neuroscience research for example dementia, or addiction research by identifying both disease-specific factors and protocols for these areas of interest. These should help to explain and reduce the amount of irreproducible findings in these fields. Planned new features for the platform include the establishment of an online discussion forum and a self-assessment tool to check conformity with PEERS’ recommendations (‘PEERS Reports’) when submitting grant proposals or manuscripts. Furthermore, PEERS aims to intensify its interaction with stakeholders such as neuroscience funding bodies or scientific editors to identify their needs and include those elements into the database and PEERS Reports. Both initiatives are set to enhance PEERS’ grassroot connection with its scientific users and to increase its versatility. These can then be supported by proof-of-concept experiments. In this context, we also seek to review funder-supported publications and determine data robustness to identify areas of high/low reproducibility. With these initiatives and the support of the wider neuroscience community, PEERS seeks to significantly improve data robustness, credibility and translatability of preclinical neuroscience research