5. Blinding/Masking Describe who was aware of the group allocation at the different stages of the experiment (during the allocation, the conduct of the experiment, the outcome assessment, and the data analysis). examples

“For each animal, four different investigators were involved as follows: a first investigator (RB) administered the treatment based on the randomization table. This investigator was the only person aware of the treatment group allocation. A second investigator (SC) was responsible for the anaesthetic procedure, whereas a third investigator (MS, PG, IT) performed the surgical procedure. Finally, a fourth investigator (MAD) (also unaware of treatment) assessed GCPS and NRS, mechanical nociceptive threshold (MNT), and sedation NRS scores.” [1]

“…due to overt behavioral seizure activity the experimenter could not be blinded to whether the animal was injected with pilocarpine or with saline.” [2] 

“Investigators could not be blinded to the mouse strain due to the difference in coat colors, but the three-chamber sociability test was performed with ANY-maze video tracking software (Stoelting, Wood Dale, IL, USA) using an overhead video camera system to automate behavioral testing and provide unbiased data analyses. The one-chamber social interaction test requires manual scoring and was analyzed by an individual with no knowledge of the questions.” [3]