Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions

Adam Savine

The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences.

One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up when people see money. He was quoted in this 2010 article on Medical News Today saying:

“We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others,” Savine says. “You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it’s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we’ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.”

Apparently, now we know. According to the notice, Savine engaged in misconduct in research funded by four grants:

University of Lisbon investigation that spawned neuroscience retractions found no evidence of misconduct

Yesterday, we reported on two retractions in the Journal of Neuroscience whose notices referred to a University of Lisbon report that had determined there was  “substantial data misrepresentation” in the original articles.  The notice didn’t say anything about misconduct, but when we see “misrepresentation,” we tend to think — as do many others — that there had been funny business.

But we heard back this morning from the senior author of the study, Ana M. Sebastião, and there’s a lot more to this story. It turns out that the University of Lisbon committee that wrote the report concluded, unanimously, that

University of Lisbon finds “substantial data misrepresentation;” two Journal of Neuroscience papers retracted

A University of Lisbon investigation has prompted two retractions in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The papers share a few authors, including senior author Ana M. Sebastião. Here’s the notice for the first paper:

Journal of Neuroscience retraction, typically opaque, from author with history of errors

The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2011 paper by an international group of scientists, including the prominent Maryland researcher Ronald Dubner, but readers won’t know why.

As the notice “explains“:

Canada’s Memorial U says “substantial data misrepresentation” described by retraction notice was unintentional

Yesterday, we reported on a retraction in the Journal of Neuroscience for “substantial data misrepresentation.” When we posted, the authors’ institution, Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, had not been able to respond to our questions yet, because of the long Canada Day weekend. This morning, they sent us the following statement, which describes the errors that led to the retraction as unintentional:

Journal of Neuroscience retracts federally funded Canadian study with “substantial data misrepresentation”

The Journal of Neuroscience is retracting a paper by researchers at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, after a university investigation found “substantial data misrepresentation” in the work, which was funded by two major federal agencies.

Here’s the notice:

Does a new retraction suggest a glimmer of hope for transparency at the Journal of Neuroscience?

Believe it or not, we look for policies to praise here at Retraction Watch HQ, especially if they mark a change from approaches that we and others have criticized. So we were heartened to read this retraction notice in The Journal of Neuroscience for “Lmx1b-Controlled Isthmic Organizer Is Essential for Development of Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons:”

The Journal of Neuroscience has received a report describing an investigation by the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, which found major data misrepresentation in the article by Guo et al. Because the results cannot be considered reliable, The Journal is retracting the paper.

The study has been cited five times since it was published in 2008, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s some background on why we thought we’d have something to praise, from a Nature feature this week on retractions:

Update on Journal of Neuroscience retractions: Authors being investigated. Plus, editor explains why notices say nothing

We have updates on the two mysterious Journal of Neuroscience retractions we reported on yesterday. One is that we have learned that there is a university investigation into the work of one of the teams that retracted one of the studies. More on that in a bit.

Two, the journal’s editor, John Maunsell, responded to our request for comment, and we’re quoting his entire email (with annotation) because we think it raises important issues:

Journal of Neuroscience retracts two, one 13 years old

The June 8 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience includes two retractions:

• One is of 2007′s “Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Stimulates Hypothalamic Proopiomelanocortin Neurons,” by a group led by Frances Ashcroft of Oxford.
• The other: 1998′s “Activated Protein C Reduces the Severity of Compression-Induced Spinal Cord Injury in Rats by Inhibiting Activation of Leukocytes,” by Yuki Taoka and colleagues.

The notices are completely uninformative. They read: