Salient findings: extraordinary examples of tailoring the design to the question in laboratory and practice

A summary of 3 papers of special interest to researchers and clinicians that appeared in the general scientific and medical literatures. All are robust, empirically grounded studies, however, each differs in its approach and design. These studies are exemplars of customizing design to the question asked and the opportunities afforded by setting. The first addresses delusions of alien control in the human brain; the second examines mechanisms accounting for the efficacy of hypnosis in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome; the third is an extraordinarily clever empirically grounded N-of-1 case study tracking the behavioral treatment of a teenager with motor and vocal tics. Taken together, these three studies illustrate the variety of research designs that can be used to bring evidence to bear on important matters of theory and practice.