Sex bias in neuroscience and biomedical research.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Level 5 by design analogy; descriptive bibliometric review and expert commentary on animal and biomedical literature.
PubMed 20620164 · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.07.002
What was done
The authors reviewed sex bias in mammalian research across 10 biological disciplines for the year 2009 alongside historical precedents over the past half-century.
What was found
Male bias was identified in 8 of 10 biological disciplines, peaking in neuroscience where single-sex male studies outnumbered female studies 5.5 to 1. Over the prior 50 years, male bias increased in non-human animal research while declining in human research. Studies that used both sexes frequently omitted sex-stratified analyses. Most articles in several journals relied exclusively on rats and mice.
Why it matters
The systematic underrepresentation of female mammals and failure to analyze by sex distorts preclinical models and compromises the understanding of female biology.
Limits
The abstract does not disclose the sample size (total number of articles analyzed), specific search criteria, or exact numerical ratios for the other biological disciplines examined.
Cited by
- supports Historically, most biomedical and clinical trial research was conducted primarily on males because of concerns regarding greater physiological variability in females.