Example Problem 12.33 Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 is a neurodegenerative disea

Question

Example Problem 12.33
Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 is a neurodegenerative disease marked by the gradual loss of motor skills and culminating in early death. It is caused by an expanded CAG repeat in the coding region of the Ataxin 1 gene. Fryer et al. (2011) investigated the possible benefits of excercise in treating the disease. They used a mild excercise regimen in a mouse model of the disease (a mouse strain in which an expanded CAG repeat was “knocked in” to the mouse version of the same gene, and that had similar symptoms).

a. What is the basic question the researchers are asking?
b. Name the explanatory and response variables and the scale on which they're quantified.
c. What type(s) of statistical model(s) makes sense for these data?
d. What type of plot might you provide to show the data in the analysis?

Explanation / Answer

a. What is the basic question the researchers are asking?

The basic research question is whether "excercise" helps in treating the disease that is marked by the gradual loss of motor skills and culminating in early death.

b. Name the explanatory and response variables and the scale on which they're quantified.

response variable is : motor skills
Explanatory variable is presense/absence of excercise

c. What type(s) of statistical model(s) makes sense for these data?

we can conduct an independent sample t test to check this
create 2 groups
one who excercises
one who doest excercise

measure the motor skills for the 2 groups , perform the t test to check if the excercise group has reduced loss as compared to the non-excercise group

d. What type of plot might you provide to show the data in the analysis?

we can create a boxplot to see how 2 groups are distributed in terms of
median
25%
75%
min
max values

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