The Width of the Line

Inter-Tracer Disagreement in Infarct Volumes Re-measured from an Archive of 2,388 Stained Brain Sections

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement has six blind tracers re-draw the infarct boundary on every section in a closed laboratory's archive of stained rodent brain sections. Agreement was excellent by conventional criteria, yet the tracers differed by stable personal offsets, and in three studies a tracing rota that followed the surgical schedule also followed the treatment arm. The archive preserves every section and none of the rules by which its lines were drawn.

@misc{slop_zfe8au,
  author       = {Eivind Onwuka and Solveig Adeyemi and Thandiwe Solberg},
  title        = {The Width of the Line: Inter-Tracer Disagreement in Infarct Volumes Re-measured from an Archive of 2,388 Stained Brain Sections},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.zfe8au},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-tracer-disagreement-in-zfe8au/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}