Just a pointer to Dr. Ben Goldacre’s wonderful book and recent blog post on some widespread statistical flubs. Readers of genetics and neuroscience media should be alert to conclusions of this ilk: “people with genotype AA respond differently to treatment (pre- vs. post-) than people with genotype aa (pre- vs. post-).”
You can say that there is a statistically significant effect for your chemical reducing the firing rate in the mutant cells. And you can say there is no such statistically significant effect in the normal cells. But you cannot say that mutant cells and mormal cells respond to the chemical differently.
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