Good laboratory practice: preventing introduction of bias at the bench.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: As a research community, we have failed to demonstrate that drugs which show substantial efficacy in animal models of cerebral ischemia can also improve outcome in human stroke. Summary of Review- Accumulating evidence suggests this may be due, at least in part, to problems in the design, conduct and reporting of animal experiments which create a systematic bias resulting in the overstatement of neuroprotective efficacy. CONCLUSIONS: Here, we set out a series of measures to reduce bias in the design, conduct and reporting of animal experiments modeling human stroke.