Replication costs money

I ran across a curious finding in a very Glamourous publication. Being that it was in a CNS journal, the behavior sucked. The data failed to back up the central claim about that behavior*. Which was kind of central to the actual scientific advance of the entire work.

So I contemplated an initial, very limited check on the behavior. A replication of the converging sort.

It’s going to cost me about $15K to do it.

If it turns out negative, then where am I? Where am I going to publish a one figure tut-tut negative that flies in the face of a result published in CNS?

If it turns out positive, this is almost worse. It’s a “yeah we already knew that from this CNS paper, dumbass” rejection waiting to happen.

Either way, if I expect to be able to publish in even a dump journal I’m gong to need to throw some more money at the topic. I’d say at least $50K.

At least.

Spent from grants that are not really related to this topic in any direct way.

If the NIH is serious about the alleged replication problem then it needs to be serious about the costs and risks involved.
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*a typical problem with CNS pubs that involve behavioral studies.