It is one of the central aims of the philosophy of science to elucidate the meanings of scientific terms and also to think critically about their application. The focus of this essay is the scientific term predict and whether there is credible evidence that animal models, especially in toxicology and pathophysiology, can be used to predict human outcomes. Whether animals can be used to predict ...

Early brain development has a tremendous impact on the success of humans throughout their lives. During early development, neural circuit formation proceeds in a strictly regulated manner. In addition to genetic and epigenetic programs, recent studies using animal models have demonstrated that certain maternal bio-active agents are essential for normal neural development, with deficiencies adve...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.02.005 0003-3472/© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-n An animal's metabolism changes throughout development, obliging the animal to coordinate its feeding behaviour with its stage-specific nutritional requirements. Previous studies in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster showed that the developme...