What is to be gained by imaging the same animal before and after treatment?
Experimental design includes decisions to perform measurements with intact animals or truncated in vivo measurements followed by dissection and ex vivo measurements. The design may be driven by advantages and disadvantages of the choices. Analytical results are presented here that can provide a basis for certain experimental design choices. Design considerations include longitudinal studies in the single animal that bracket a treatment, joint observations by supplementing the imaging data with plasma and/or ex vivo sampling after dissection, multiple injections of increasing molar base or administration of a molar dose that results in the occupation of a significant fraction of the target receptors. Of particular interest when constructing an experimental design is the reduction of bias. Analysis tools for this purpose include reparameterization and model application without the formation of time-based averaging.