Large Language Model-Based Agents for Automated Research Reproducibility: An Exploratory Study in Alzheimer's Disease

TL;DR

This study explores using GPT-4-based autonomous agents to reproduce research findings in Alzheimer's disease studies, revealing both potential and current limitations in automating scientific reproducibility.

Contribution

It demonstrates the feasibility and challenges of employing LLMs as autonomous agents for research reproducibility in biomedical studies.

Findings

Agents reproduced approximately 53.2% of findings per study

Numeric and methodological discrepancies were common

Agents sometimes successfully replicated research techniques

Abstract

Objective: To demonstrate the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) as autonomous agents to reproduce findings of published research studies using the same or similar dataset. Materials and Methods: We used the "Quick Access" dataset of the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC). We identified highly cited published research manuscripts using NACC data and selected five studies that appeared reproducible using this dataset alone. Using GPT-4o, we created a simulated research team of LLM-based autonomous agents tasked with writing and executing code to dynamically reproduce the findings of each study, given only study Abstracts, Methods sections, and data dictionary descriptions of the dataset. Results: We extracted 35 key findings described in the Abstracts across 5 Alzheimer's studies. On average, LLM agents approximately reproduced 53.2% of findings per study. Numeric values and range-based findings often differed between studies and agents. The agents also applied statistical methods or parameters that varied from the originals, though overall trends and significance were sometimes similar. Discussion: In some cases, LLM-based agents replicated research techniques and findings. In others, they failed due to implementation flaws or missing methodological detail. These discrepancies show the current limits of LLMs in fully automating reproducibility assessments. Still, this early investigation highlights the potential of structured agent-based systems to provide scalable evaluation of scientific rigor. Conclusion: This exploratory work illustrates both the promise and limitations of LLMs as autonomous agents for automating reproducibility in biomedical research.