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Not all pre-registrations are equal

Waldron, Sophie; Allen, Christopher

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Authors

Sophie Waldron sophie.waldron@durham.ac.uk
Post Doctoral Research Associate

Dr Chris Allen christopher.p.allen@durham.ac.uk
Post Doctoral Research Associate



Abstract

There is growing recognition that troubling numbers of experiments fail to replicate in fields relevant to Neuropsychopharmacology, from neuroimaging [1] to animal behaviour [2]. We believe a counteraction to this, led by pharmacology, is increased emphasis on the distinction between exploratory and confirmatory scientific practices [3]. Exploratory research, where multiple methodologies and analyses are trialled, is vital for discovery. In contrast, confirmatory research requires that this flexibility is minimised to address a well-specified research question. We aim to highlight problems that arise when this boundary is blurred, and how a new vista of publishing formats generally help by nailing down this distinction. However, some formats can allow problematic flexibility to re-enter under a confirmatory guise.

Citation

Waldron, S., & Allen, C. (2022). Not all pre-registrations are equal. Neuropsychopharmacology, 47(13), 2181-2183. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-022-01418-x

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 28, 2022
Online Publication Date Aug 18, 2022
Publication Date 2022-12
Deposit Date Sep 15, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 15, 2023
Journal Neuropsychopharmacology
Print ISSN 0893-133X
Electronic ISSN 1740-634X
Publisher Springer Nature [academic journals on nature.com]
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 47
Issue 13
Pages 2181-2183
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-022-01418-x

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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