My neural engineering professor, Dr. Alvarez always would mention her lab using “double-blind” procedures in her experiments. She always stressed how efficient this method was at eliminating any type of biases between the researchers and their subjects.

A double blind study prevents the subject from knowing the treatment they are getting, while also preventing the researcher from knowing what the treatment the subject is taking.

In the example given on developing an Alzheimer’s drug, during the clinical phase it would be more efficient for the experiments to be done using a double blind method. If patient one is given the experimental pill and patients two is given a sugar pill, the investigator may tend to favor the results of the patient who took the experimental pill. However, if the researcher does not know either of the subjects treatments, they can not have any biases, leading to more accurate results.