The designs of symptom prevalence studies need to be improved because of methodological disparities in symptom assessment and designs.
The differences observed in the degree of effectiveness across studies have been variously attributed to methodological disparities (Deshauer et al. 2005; Coryell 2009), a broadening of the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder (Grof et al. 1993; Grof et al. 1995; Grof 1998), or changes in the course of illness over long periods (Goodwin 1999).
We focused on three main methodological disparities; 1) one vs. two growth cycles, 2) flow cytometry vs. pLDH assessment of parasitemia, and 3) dialysis vs. no dialysis of plasma.
Reasons to this paradox may be methodological disparities [6] and statistical constraints created by the large number of genes examined with respect to the relatively small number of samples profiled [7] [9].
Thus, we can rule out methodological disparities.
Contradictory results among studies may be explained primarily by methodological disparities, such as the use of different cut-off points for breastfeeding [ 19, 20].
These differences might reflect linguistic specificities and cultural differences, but they may also result from methodological disparities (e.g. differences in the clinical characteristics of patients) between both studies.
The previous review [ 58] also noted the difficulties in drawing meaningful conclusions from disparate studies, and while we did extract potentially useful information from the studies (Additional file 2), we felt that clinical and methodological heterogeneity, and disparities in size, were too great to attempt further sensitivity analysis.
Kuhn initially used the term holistically to capture methodological, observational and conceptual disparities between successive scientific paradigms that he had encountered in his historical investigations into the development of the natural sciences (Kuhn 1962, 148 150).
Considering however the high level of coincidence between Supekar et al. functional correlations and the synchronization patterns hereby presented, only methodological differences could explain the disparity of the graph analysis results.
