The fallacy of behavioral phenotyping without standardisation

Methotrexate: the gold standard without standardisation.

Even in the current era of biological targeted therapies, methotrexate (MTX) remains the initial preferred antirheumatic drug and is widely prescribed for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The combination of its perceived efficacy, acceptable safety profile and low cost, as well as decades of clinical experience with its use that have been accumulated by current and previous generations ...

Automated Home-cage Behavioral Phenotyping of Mice

A U T O M AT E D H O M E-C A G E B E H AV I O R A L PH E N O T YPIN G O F M I C E Hueihan Jhuang, Estibaliz Garrote, Xinlin Yu, Vinita Khilnani, Tomaso Poggio, Andrew D. Steele* and Thomas Serre * Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Current address: Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences, Brown Institute for...

Behavioral phenotyping in zebrafish: comparison of three behavioral quantification methods.

The zebrafish has been popular in developmental biology and genetics, but its brain function has rarely been studied. High-throughput screening of mutation or drug-induced changes in brain function requires simple and automatable behavioral tests. This article compares three behavioral quantification methods in four simple behavioral paradigms that test a range of characteristics of adult zebra...

The No Miracles Argument without the Base Rate Fallacy

According to an argument by Colin Howson, the no-miracles argument is contingent on committing the base-rate fallacy and is therefore bound to fail. We demonstrate that Howson’s argument only applies to one of two versions of the no-miracles argument. The other, more considerate version is not adequately reconstructed in Howson’s approach and thus remains unaffected by his line of reasoning. We...

The “banzhaf Fallacy” Fallacy