The influence of the researcher's gender on experimental results is an issue that has long been overlooked. Researchers have shown that this parameter is in fact a determining variable in the results.
Polymnia Georgiou and her colleagues at the University of Maryland found that their lab mice’s responses to ketamine differed depending on the gender of the humans administering the drug.The mice did indeed have a greater antidepressant response to ketamine when handled by men. This led Georgiou and colleagues to conclude that the effect of gender was very specific to how ketamine affects mice. The presence of male human experimenters, caused the mice to show more signs of anxiety, pain and depression. These results could be the missing piece of the puzzle as to why some people respond well to ketamine as an antidepressant while, frustratingly, it doesn’t seem to help others at all. These results reinforce the idea that experimental conditions must be extremely well controlled. Jeffrey Mogil, Professor at McGill University had already observed this phenomenon in 2014 and in fact recommends specifying the gender of experimenters in any behavioral experimentation.
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