Animal research: reporting in vivo experiments: the ARRIVE guidelines.

ƒ Guide authors as to the essential information to include in a manuscript, and not be absolutely prescriptive. ƒ Be flexible to accommodate reporting a wide range of research areas and experimental protocols. The guidelines are NOT intended to: ƒ Promote uniformity, stifle creativity, or encourage authors to adhere rigidly to all items in the checklist. Some of the items may not apply to all studies, and some items can be presented as tables/figure legends or flow diagrams (e.g. the numbers of animals treated, assessed and analysed). ƒ Be a guide for study design and conduct. However, some items on the checklist, such as randomisation, blinding and using comparator groups, may be useful when planning experiments as their use will reduce the risk of bias and increase the robustness of the research. What kind of research areas do the guidelines apply to? ƒ The guidelines will be most appropriate for comparative studies, where two or more groups of experimental animals are being compared; often one or more of the groups may be considered as a control. They apply also to studies comparing different drug doses, or, for example, where a single animal is used as its own control (within–subject experiment). ƒ Most of the recommendations also apply to studies that do not have a control group. ƒ The guidelines are suitable for any area of bioscience research where laboratory animals are used.