Standards of evidence in chronobiology: A response

The recent review by Mistlberger and colleagues [1] purports to raise a number of important questions concerning how studies in circadian biology should be performed, and what types of standards should be met. Unfortunately, rather than engaging in a debate that broadly considers issues across the field, Mistlberger and colleagues chose to focus almost entirely on criticizing our recent paper [2].We welcome the opportunity to engage in a discussion about the methods used in circadian biology, which we believe frequently are applied in ways that confuse circadian, homeostatic, and cognitive influences. We would like to begin at that level, first by addressing a few ground rules for such debate, such as the ways in which scientists should interact, and then turn our attention to critical standards for experiments in circadian biology. Finally, we will then address the issues raised by Mistlberger et al. about our own paper, point by point, and discuss each one specifically. Our conclusion is that not only are each of these points incorrect, but that this could have been established by Mistlberger and colleagues if they had discussed these issues with us in advance.We believe that maintaining an open laboratory, in which colleagues are welcome to ask questions and to come visit, and to review methods and data, is critical to maintaining a scientific environment. Our laboratory, since its inception in 1981, has operated in this way. Although Dr. Fuller had some preliminary email exchanges with Dr. Mistlberger to discuss the data, not one of the eight authors of the Mistlberger review ever contacted the corresponding author on the paper (CBS) to discuss the questions that their review raises about our data or methods. We take it as axiomatic that this is necessary before making allegations about errors in data collection or presentation. As we indicate in the rest of our detailed response, we remain available to discuss these issues and demonstrate our data and methods t