- what is p value in the study? Ans: In a statistical measure it helps us to determine the significance of results. It indicates the probability that the observed results are occurred by chance. Typically, a p-value less than 0.05 is considered statistically significant, meaning there is less than 5% probability that the findings are due to random chance.
During ice-breaking session:
1 - Quiz How many participants are typically needed for a study to be considered a “large randomised trial”?
Answer: It’s actually subjective. The claim of our paper is that it is large randomised trial. Because, no previous study of this kind has taken around 300 participants in the study.
2 - Quiz What is salivary cortisol? Answer: Salivary cortisol is a measure of the hormone cortisol found in saliva, often used to assess stress levels. Cortisol, known as the “stress hormone,” is produced by the adrenal glands and helps regulate various bodily functions, including metabolism, immune response, and the body’s response to stress. Salivary cortisol is a non-invasive way to measure cortisol levels and reflects the body’s immediate stress response, as cortisol can quickly move from the bloodstream into saliva. Elevated salivary cortisol levels typically indicate increased stress or activation of the body’s “fight-or-flight” response.
What is invasive method of measuring Cortisol level? An invasive way to measure cortisol levels involves collecting blood samples, which requires a needle to draw blood from a vein. This method is considered invasive because it penetrates the skin and can cause discomfort, risk of infection, or stress in some individuals.
3 - Quiz What is IL-6? Answer: Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a type of cytokine, which is a protein involved in immune system signalling. IL-6 is essential in controlling infections and repairing damage, its overproduction can lead to chronic inflammation. Elevated levels of IL-6 have been associated with chronic diseases like heart disease, and some cancers.
- In psychophysiological studies, IL-6 is used as a biomarker of stress and inflammation. Increased levels of IL-6 can indicate prolonged stress or inflammation, providing an objective measure of physiological stress.
- In the context of cancer, high IL-6 levels have been associated with fatigue, depression, and poorer outcomes, as the inflammation it signals may promote cancer progression.
4 - Quiz What is the main goal of psychophysiology?
5 - Quiz Which of these is a common method used to measure stress in psychophysiological studies? Answer: Give smartwatch example.
6 - Quiz Answer: What does “intervention” mean in a scientific study? In a scientific study, an intervention is a deliberate action or treatment introduced to study its effects on participants. This could be a therapy, medication, lifestyle change, or program (like mindfulness training). Researchers measure outcomes before and after the intervention to determine if it causes any changes, helping assess its effectiveness or impact.
7 - Quiz In research, what is a control group? Answer: A group that doesn’t receive the treatment, used for comparison
8 - Quiz What is the purpose of a hypothesis in scientific research? Answer: To provide a testable prediction about a research question. In scientific research, a hypothesis is a testable prediction about the relationship between variables. It guides the study by providing a focused question to investigate and helps determine if the expected outcome occurs, thus supporting or challenging existing theories.
Comparisons:
| Study (Year) | Hypothesis 1 (Immediate short-term effects) | Hypothesis 2 (Long-term effects) | Hypothesis 3 (Associations with symptoms and quality of life) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branstrom et al. (2013) | Not Given | No | Yes (moderation effect on cortisol based on baseline levels) |
| Matchim, Armer, and Stewart (2011) | Yes (decrease in morning cortisol post-MBSR) | Not Given | Not Given |
| Witek-Janusek et al. (2008) | Yes | Yes (long-term reduction in plasma cortisol) | Not Given |
| Carlson et al. (2007) | Not Given | No (overall cortisol change) but Yes (decrease for high baseline cortisol) | Not Given |
| O’Leary, O’Neill, and Dockray (2016) | Not Given | No | Not Given |
| Gallegos et al. (2015) | Not Given | Yes (changes in IL-6 over time) | Not Given |
| Creswell et al. (2012) | Not Given | No (no long-term change in IL-6) | Not Given |
| Bossola et al. (2010) | Not Given | Not Given | Yes (positive correlation between IL-6 and symptoms like anxiety and depression) |
Question: I can see that you are using Biomarkers to identify the stress in the Research. What are the drawbacks of biomarkers?
My pages in the slide: 11-13 43-50 62-65 80
This paper is sound in terms of research questions and hypotheses. The methods are clear and well suited to answer the questions with few shortcomings in statistical analysis. The results are complete and well presented. And the researchers acknowledged their shortcomings. So this is in fact a positive aspect of the paper.
The claim of the paper is that this study is the largest clinical trial to evaluate the effects of MBSR on the stress biomarker (cortisol, IL-6). The literature clearly explains the research gap that although some BC studies found no relationship between these biomarkers and psychological symptoms (Matousek et al., 2011) there are researches backing the relationship between stress and biomarkers such as cortisol (Abercrombie et al., 2004) and IL-6 (Rohleder et al., 2012). And whether the MBSR program indeed has any effect on these biomarker is yet to be proven.
However the researchers based their research question on these biomarkers because of the non-invasiveness of their measure. For cortisol was measured from saliva collection with the droll method. And for the measurement of IL-6, saliva was assayed using ELISA kit. The testing method aligns with theÂ
which supports the previous findings that physiological changes occur during MBSR among BCS (Lengacher et al., 2009).Â
For the measure of psychological symptoms i.e. fear of cancer recurrence with CAR-S, depression with CES-D, anxiety with State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, sleep quality with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, fatigue with Fatigue Symptom Inventory and quality of life with Medical Outcomes Studies Short-Form General Health Survey was used. And the researcher disclosed the Alpha ranging from 0.7 to 0.95 for these tests to show that the global standard was followed.
Statistical methods used in the paper are appropriate with few adjustment points. Wilcoxon-signed ranks test was applied to check within the group reductions in cortisol and IL-6 from pre to post class session at week-1 and week-6. This is done because of the non-parametric nature. A standard linear mixed model was used for hypothesis (2). But since there are multiple correlations with psychological symptoms, Bonferroni correction should have been applied (Curtin & Schulz, 1998). And this lack of adjustment is not addressed on the research paper.
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Although logical construct of the research paper was sound, the LLMs if asked suggestive question it hallucinates a lot. And the response from the Gemini-1.5-pro was more accurate to the prompt, while the gpt-4o model always seem to prefer long answers over small answer even though by adding this in the system prompt. The framework automated the response and gave more clean response. But both model needs to be handled differently, while working with Gemini the response was concise with hallucinations and inaccurate. Working with gpt-4o model was more frustrating as it tends to give the response more elaborately. Which looks nice, but doesn’t have any meaningful content inside it. Also it tends to summarise the response at the end. Now if the initial model selection was gpt-4o this would be handled well. But then it could be the case that the response from Geimin 1.5-pro would be more concise than it was. One way of handling this could be by limiting the word number. But that would also create issue as some questions would require more detailed answer than others.