Federal funders of research using animals have been advocating for more rigor and reproducibility in such studies. One way to help ensure quality and safeguard animal health is to employ ARRIVE—the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments guidelines, according to one of its coauthors.^[1] The guidelines have been endorsed and promoted by the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) and other NIH institutes.

In the October issue, RRC first provided details on “what has been agreed on by international consensus as best practice for reporting animal-based research,” as Penny Reynolds, assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Florida, described them in a webinar sponsored by OLAW.^[2]

Reynolds is the coauthor of ARRIVE 2.0, which was released in 2020. It includes The Essential 10 Checklist, which addresses topics reflecting “the natural flow of an experimental process.”

The ARRIVE guidelines apply throughout the entire research process and the checklist was created to aid implementation. ARRIVE can be used to design experiments, identify and record information that might otherwise have been missed and report information in the manuscript, Reynolds explained.

RRC previously reviewed the first five items on the checklist: study design, sample size, inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomization and blinding. This article discusses the final five: outcome measures, statistical methods, experimental animals, experimental procedures and results.