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223 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Neuroscience · Negative / Null Result Report. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

No Evidence for an Object Working Memory Capacity Benefit with Extended Viewing Time

Colin Quirk, Kirsten Adam, Edward K. Vogel · 2020 · eNeuro

Visual working memory is the ability to hold visual information temporarily in mind. A key feature of working memory is its starkly limited capacity, such that only a few simple items can be remembered at once. Prior work has shown that this capacity limit cannot be circumvented by providing additional encoding time, whether providing just 200 ms or up to 1300 ms, capacity is still limited to only three to four items. In contrast, Brady et al. (2016) hypothesized that real-world objects, but not simple items used in prior research, benefit from additional encoding time and are not subject to t

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Significant Association of Urinary Toxic Metals and Autism-Related Symptoms—A Nonlinear Statistical Analysis with Cross Validation

James B. Adams, Daniel P. Howsmon, Uwe Krüger et al. · 2017 · PLoS ONE

INTRODUCTION: A number of previous studies examined a possible association of toxic metals and autism, and over half of those studies suggest that toxic metal levels are different in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Additionally, several studies found that those levels correlate with the severity of ASD. METHODS: In order to further investigate these points, this paper performs the most detailed statistical analysis to date of a data set in this field. First morning urine samples were collected from 67 children and adults with ASD and 50 neurotypical controls of similar age an

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Lack of significant association between mutations of KCNJ10 or FOXI1 and SLC26A4 mutations in pendred syndrome/enlarged vestibular aqueducts

Priya Landa, Ann‐Marie Differ, Kaukab Rajput et al. · 2013 · BMC Medical Genetics

BACKGROUND: Pendred syndrome is a common autosomal recessive disorder causing deafness. Features include sensorineural hearing impairment, goitre, enlarged vestibular aqueducts (EVA) and occasionally Mondini dysplasia. Hearing impairment and EVA may occur in the absence of goitre or thyroid dyshormonogensis in a condition known as non-syndromic EVA. A significant number of patients with Pendred syndrome and non-syndromic EVA show only one mutation in SLC26A4. Two genes, KCNJ10, encoding an inwardly rectifying potassium channel and FOXI1, a transcriptional factor gene, are thought to play a rol

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Engineering a Blood-Retinal Barrier With Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Pigment Epithelium: Transcriptome and Functional Analysis

Shaomin Peng, Geliang Gan, Caihong Qiu et al. · 2013 · Stem Cells Translational Medicine

Retinal degenerations are a major cause of impaired vision in the elderly. Degenerations originate in either photoreceptors or the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). RPE forms the outer blood-retinal barrier and functions intimately with…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

The effects of induced state negative affect on performance monitoring processes

Peter E. Clayson, Ann Clawson, Michael J. Larson · 2011 · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Previous research suggests that performance-monitoring processes are related to personality traits; relationships with affective states, however, remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous findings that…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Why the A/AN prediction effect may be hard to replicate: a rebuttal to Delong, Urbach, and Kutas (2017)

Aine Ito, Andrea E. Martin, Mante S. Nieuwland · 2017 · Language Cognition and Neuroscience

In our recent publication “How robust are prediction effects in language comprehension? Failure to replicate article-elicited N400 effects” (Ito, Martin, & Nieuwland, 2016a), we report two experiments which failed to replicate existing…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Evaluating the replicability of the uncanny valley effect

Jussi Palomäki, Anton Kunnari, Marianna Drosinou et al. · 2018 · Heliyon

The uncanny valley (UV) effect refers to an eerie feeling of unfamiliarity people get while observing or interacting with robots that resemble humans almost but not quite perfectly. The effect is not well understood, and it is also unclear…

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Cathodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Children With Dystonia

Scott J. Young, Matteo Bertucco, Rebecca Sheehan-Stross et al. · 2012 · Journal of Child Neurology

Studies suggest that dystonia is associated with increased motor cortex excitability. Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation can temporarily reduce motor cortex excitability. To test whether stimulation of the motor cortex can…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Statistically significant features improve binary and multiple Motor Imagery task predictions from EEGs

Mürşide Değirmenci, Yılmaz Kemal Yüce, Matjaž Perc et al. · 2023 · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

In recent studies, in the field of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), researchers have focused on Motor Imagery tasks. Motor Imagery-based electroencephalogram (EEG) signals provide the interaction and communication between the paralyzed patients and the outside world for moving and controlling external devices such as wheelchair and moving cursors. However, current approaches in the Motor Imagery-BCI system design require effective feature extraction methods and classification algorithms to acquire discriminative features from EEG signals due to the non-linear and non-stationary structure of EEG

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Genome-wide association data suggest ABCB1 and immune-related gene sets may be involved in adult antisocial behavior

Jessica E. Salvatore, Alexis C. Edwards, Jeanette N. McClintick et al. · 2015 · Translational Psychiatry

Adult antisocial behavior (AAB) is moderately heritable, relatively common and has adverse consequences for individuals and society. We examined the molecular genetic basis of AAB in 1379 participants from a case-control study in which the cases met criteria for alcohol dependence. We also examined whether genes of interest were expressed in human brain. AAB was measured using a count of the number of Antisocial Personality Disorder criteria endorsed under criterion A from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV). Participants were genotyped on the Illumi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

In situ Tip-Recordings Found No Evidence for an Orco-Based Ionotropic Mechanism of Pheromone-Transduction in Manduca sexta

Andreas Nolte, Nico W. Funk, Latha Mukunda et al. · 2013 · PLoS ONE

The mechanisms of insect odor transduction are still controversial. Insect odorant receptors (ORs) are 7TM receptors with inverted membrane topology. They colocalize with a conserved coreceptor (Orco) with chaperone and ion channel function. Some studies suggest that insects employ exclusively ionotropic odor transduction via OR-Orco heteromers. Other studies provide evidence for different metabotropic odor transduction cascades, which employ second messenger-gated ion channel families for odor transduction. The hawkmoth Manduca sexta is an established model organism for studies of insect olfa

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Direct stimulation of somatosensory cortex results in slower reaction times compared to peripheral touch in humans

David J. Caldwell, Jeneva A. Cronin, Jing Wu et al. · 2019 · Scientific Reports

Direct cortical stimulation (DCS) of primary somatosensory cortex (S1) could help restore sensation and provide task-relevant feedback in a neuroprosthesis. However, the psychophysics of S1 DCS is poorly studied, including any comparison to cutaneous haptic stimulation. We compare the response times to DCS of human hand somatosensory cortex through electrocorticographic grids with response times to haptic stimuli delivered to the hand in four subjects. We found that subjects respond significantly slower to S1 DCS than to natural, haptic stimuli for a range of DCS train durations. Median respon

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Unconscious processing of facial dominance: The role of low-level factors in access to awareness.

Timo Stein, Deema Awad, Surya Gayet et al. · 2018 · Journal of Experimental Psychology General

Visual stimuli with social-emotional relevance have been claimed to gain preferential access to awareness. For example, recent studies used the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm (b-CFS) to show that faces that are perceived as less dominant and more trustworthy are prioritized for awareness. Here we asked whether these effects truly reflect differences in social-emotional meaning or whether they can be equally explained by differences in low-level stimulus properties. In Experiment 1, we successfully replicated dominance- and untrustworthiness-related slowing for upright faces. Ho

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Time of day determines postexercise metabolism in mouse adipose tissue

Logan A. Pendergrast, L Lundell, Amy M. Ehrlich et al. · 2023 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The circadian clock is a cell-autonomous transcription–translation feedback mechanism that anticipates and adapts physiology and behavior to different phases of the day. A variety of factors including hormones, temperature, food-intake,…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Gene–environment interaction in externalizing problems among adolescents: evidence from the Pelotas 1993 Birth Cohort Study

Christian Kieling, Mara Helena Hutz, Júlia Pasqualini Genro et al. · 2012 · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

BACKGROUND: The study of gene-environment interactions (G × E) is one of the most promising strategies to uncover the origins of mental disorders. Replication of initial findings, however, is essential because there is a strong possibility…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Alterations in sleep, sleep spindle, and EEG power in mGluR5 knockout mice

David D. Aguilar, Robert E. Strecker, Radhika Basheer et al. · 2019 · Journal of Neurophysiology

The type 5 metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR5) represents a novel therapeutic target for schizophrenia and other disorders. Schizophrenia is associated with progressive abnormalities in cortical oscillatory processes including reduced…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Variable Neural Contributions to Explicit and Implicit Learning During Visuomotor Adaptation

Sook-Lei Liew, Tziporah Thompson, Joel Ramirez et al. · 2018 · Frontiers in Neuroscience

We routinely make fine motor adjustments to maintain optimal motor performance. These adaptations have been attributed to both implicit, error-based mechanisms, and explicit, strategy-based mechanisms. However, little is known about the neural basis of implicit vs. explicit learning. Here, we aimed to use anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to probe the relationship between different brain regions and learning mechanisms during a visuomotor adaptation task in humans. We hypothesized that anodal tDCS over the cerebellum (CB) should increase implicit learning while anodal tDCS

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Evidence for contribution of common genetic variants within chromosome 8p21.2-8p21.1 to restricted and repetitive behaviors in autism spectrum disorders

Tao Yu, Hui Gao, Benjamin Ackerman et al. · 2016 · BMC Genomics

BACKGROUND: Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors (RRB), one of the core symptom categories for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), comprises heterogeneous groups of behaviors. Previous research indicates that there are two or more factors (subcategories) within the RRB domain. In an effort to identify common variants associated with RRB, we have carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) dataset (n = 1,335, all ASD probands of European ancestry) for each identified RRB subcategory, while allowing for comparisons of associated single nucleot

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Is musical engagement enough to keep the brain young?

Anna Maria Matziorinis, Christian Gaser, Stefan Koelsch · 2022 · Brain Structure and Function

Music-making and engagement in music-related activities have shown procognitive benefits for healthy and pathological populations, suggesting reductions in brain aging. A previous brain aging study, using Brain Age Gap Estimation (BrainAGE), showed that professional and amateur-musicians had younger appearing brains than non-musicians. Our study sought to replicate those findings and analyze if musical training or active musical engagement was necessary to produce an age-decelerating effect in a cohort of healthy individuals. We scanned 125 healthy controls and investigated if musician status,

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Closed-loop modulation of local slow oscillations in human NREM sleep

Simon Ruch, Flavio Jean Schmidig, Leona Knüsel et al. · 2022 · NeuroImage

Slow-wave sleep is the deep non-rapid eye-movement (NREM) sleep stage that is most relevant for the recuperative function of sleep. Its defining property is the presence of slow oscillations (<2 Hz) in the scalp electroencephalogram (EEG). Slow oscillations are generated by a synchronous back and forth between highly active UP-states and silent DOWN-states in neocortical neurons. Growing evidence suggests that closed-loop sensory stimulation targeted at UP-states of EEG-defined slow oscillations can enhance the slow oscillatory activity, increase sleep depth, and boost sleep's recuperative fun

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Reproducibility of brain-cognition relationships using three cortical surface-based protocols: An exhaustive analysis based on cortical thickness

Kenia Martínez, Sarah K. Madsen, Anand A. Joshi et al. · 2015 · Human Brain Mapping

People differ in their cognitive functioning. This variability has been exhaustively examined at the behavioral, neural and genetic level to uncover the mechanisms by which some individuals are more cognitively efficient than others.…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Multi-Electrode Alpha tACS During Varying Background Tasks Fails to Modulate Subsequent Alpha Power

Tomer Fekete, Andrey R. Nikolaev, Floris De Knijf et al. · 2018 · Frontiers in Neuroscience

Transcranial alternating-current stimulation (tACS) for entraining alpha activity holds potential for influencing mental function, both in laboratory and clinical settings. While initial results of alpha entrainment are promising, questions remain regarding its translational potential-namely if tACS alpha entrainment is sufficiently robust to context and to what extent it can be upscaled to multi-electrode arrangements needed to direct currents into precise brain loci. We set out to explore these questions by administering alternating current through a multi-electrode montage (mtACS), while va

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Do emotions play an essential role in moral judgments?

William H.B. McAuliffe · 2018 · Thinking & Reasoning

The past few decades of moral psychology research have yielded empirical anomalies for rationalist theories of moral judgments. An increasing number of psychologists and philosophers argue that these anomalies are explained well by…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers in Spinocerebellar Ataxia: A Pilot Study

Ashley M. Brouillette, Gülin Öz, Christopher M. Gómez · 2015 · Disease Markers

Neurodegenerative diseases, including the spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA), would benefit from the identification of reliable biomarkers that could serve as disease subtype-specific and stage-specific indicators for the development and monitoring of treatments. We analyzed the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) level of tau, α-synuclein, DJ-1, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), proteins previously associated with neurodegenerative processes, in patients with the autosomal dominant SCA1, SCA2, and SCA6, and the sporadic disease multiple system atrophy, cerebellar type (MSA-C), compared with age-ma

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Higher incentives can impair performance: neural evidence on reinforcement and rationality

Anja Achtziger, Carlos Alós‐Ferrer, Sabine Hügelschäfer et al. · 2015 · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Standard economic thinking postulates that increased monetary incentives should increase performance. Human decision makers, however, frequently focus on past performance, a form of reinforcement learning occasionally at odds with rational…

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