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237 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

TREM2 in Neurodegenerative Disorders: Mutation Spectrum, Pathophysiology, and Therapeutic Targeting

Hye-Won Yang, Danyeong Kim, YoungSoon Yang et al. · 2025 · International Journal of Molecular Sciences

TREM2 (triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2) is a membrane-bound receptor primarily expressed on microglia in the central nervous system (CNS). TREM2 plays a crucial role in regulating immune responses, phagocytosis, lipid metabolism, and inflammation. Mutations in the TREM2 gene have been linked to various neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and Nasu–Hakola disease (NHD). These mutations are suggested to impair microglial activation and reduce the ability to clear amyloid aggregates, leading to ex

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation of the right anterior temporal lobe did not significantly affect verbal insight

Takatsugu Aihara, Takeshi OGAWA, Takeaki Shimokawa et al. · 2017 · PLoS ONE

Humans often utilize past experience to solve difficult problems. However, if past experience is insufficient to solve a problem, solvers may reach an impasse. Insight can be valuable for breaking an impasse, enabling the reinterpretation or re-representation of a problem. Previous studies using between-subjects designs have revealed a causal relationship between the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) and non-verbal insight, by enhancing the right ATL while inhibiting the left ATL using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In addition, neuroimaging studies have reported a correlation be

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Improved Cochlear Implant Performance Estimation Using Tonotopic-Based Electrocochleography

Amit Walia, Matthew Shew, Jordan Varghese et al. · 2023 · JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery

Importance: Cochlear implantation produces remarkable results in postlingual deafness, although auditory outcomes vary. Electrocochleography (ECochG) has emerged as a valuable tool for assessing the cochlear-neural substrate and evaluating…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

When Science Replaces Religion: Science as a Secular Authority Bolsters Moral Sensitivity

Onurcan Yılmaz, Hasan G. Bahçekapılı · 2015 · PLoS ONE

Scientific and religious thinking compete with each other on several levels. For example, activating one generally weakens the other. Since priming religion is known to increase moral behaviour and moral sensitivity, priming science might be expected to have the opposite effect. However, it was recently demonstrated that, on the contrary, science priming increases moral sensitivity as well. The present set of studies sought to replicate this effect and test two explanations for it. Study 1 used a sentence unscrambling task for implicitly priming the concept of science but failed to replicate i

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

The role of microglia in multiple sclerosis: implications for treatment with Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Patrick Vermersch, Laura Airas, Thomas Berger et al. · 2025 · Frontiers in Immunology

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system (CNS), characterized by inflammation and neurodegeneration. The pathophysiology of MS, especially its progressive forms, involves various cellular components, including microglia, the primary resident immune cells of the CNS. This review discusses the role of microglia in neuroinflammation, tissue repair, and neural homeostasis, as well as their involvement in MS and explores potential therapeutic strategies targeting microglial function. Methods: A literature search conducted in August 202

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

No evidence that self-rated negative emotion boosts visual working memory precision.

Alessandra S. Souza, Theresa Thaler, Heinrich R. Liesefeld et al. · 2020 · Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

Emotion is assumed to change how people process information by modulating attentional focus. Two recent studies (Spachtholz et al., 2014; Xie & Zhang, 2016) reported that self-reported negative emotion boosted the precision with which…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Wearing a bike helmet leads to less cognitive control, revealed by lower frontal midline theta power and risk indifference

Barbara Schmidt, Luisa Keßler, Clay B. Holroyd et al. · 2019 · Psychophysiology

A recent study claims that participants wearing a bike helmet behave riskier in a computer-based risk task compared to control participants without a bike helmet. We hypothesized that wearing a bike helmet reduces cognitive control over risky behavior. To test our hypothesis, we recorded participants' EEG brain responses while they played a risk game developed in our laboratory. Previously, we found that, in this risk game, anxious participants showed greater levels of cognitive control as revealed by greater frontal midline theta power, which was associated with less risky decisions. Here, we

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Does Belief in Free Will Increase Support for Economic Inequality?

Brett Mercier, Dylan Wiwad, Paul K. Piff et al. · 2020 · Collabra Psychology

Does belief in free will increase support for economic inequality? Five studies using diverse measures and methods tested this question. Study 1 finds belief in free will is associated with increased support for inequality. Study 2 manipulates belief in free will and does not find evidence that this changes support for inequality. Studies 3 and 4 find that people are more willing to support inequality in a hypothetical universe where free will exists compared to one where it does not (dz = 0.10–0.13), indicating that people believe the existence of free will justifies inequality. However, a be

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Handedness, Earnings, Ability and Personality. Evidence from the Lab

Marcello Sartarelli · 2016 · PLoS ONE

Evidence showing that on average left-handed (L), who are 10% in a population, tend to earn less than others is solely based on survey data. This paper is the first to test the relationship between handedness and earnings experimentally and also to assess whether the mechanism underlying it is predominantly cognitive or psychological. Data on 432 undergraduate students show that L do not obtain significantly different payoffs, a proxy for earnings, in a stylised labour market with multiple principals and agents. Similarly, scores in the Cognitive Reflection Test are not significantly different

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Determiner selection in romance languages: Evidence from French.

Alice Foucart, Holly P. Branigan, Ellen Gurman Bard · 2010 · Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition

Determiner selection requires the retrieval of the noun's syntactic features (e.g., gender) and sometimes of its phonological features. Miozzo and Caramazza (1999) argued that the selection of determiners in Germanic languages is more…

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Dissociated Predegenerated Peripheral Nerve Transplants for Spinal Cord Injury Repair: A Comprehensive Assessment of Their Effects on Regeneration and Functional Recovery Compared to Schwann Cell Transplants

Caitlin E. Hill, Danika M. Brodak, Mary Bartlett Bunge · 2012 · Journal of Neurotrauma

Several recent studies suggest that predegenerated nerves (PDNs) or dissociated PDNs (dPDNs) can improve behavioral and histological outcomes following transplantation into the injured rat spinal cord. In the current study we tested the…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Evidence of distinct RELN and TGFB1 genetic associations in familial and non-familial otosclerosis in a British population

Andrew Mowat, Michael Crompton, Joanna L. Ziff et al. · 2018 · Human Genetics

Otosclerosis is a common form of hearing loss which typically presents in young adults. The disease has a familial, monogenic form and a non-familial form with a more complex aetiology. A previous genome wide association study identified evidence that variants within RELN are associated with the condition. Other genes in which an association has been reported include BMP2, COL1A1, FGF2, PPP2R5B and TGFB1. However, follow up studies have often failed to replicate initial positive results. The aim of this study was to establish if an association exists between eight single nucleotide polymorphis

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

SGLT2 inhibitors activate pantothenate kinase in the human heart

Nicholas Forelli, Trace Thome, Deborah Eaton et al. · 2026 · Science

Abstract Inhibitors of sodium glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2i) demonstrate strong symptomatic and mortality benefits in the treatment of heart failure but appear to do so independently of SGLT2. The relevant pharmacologic target of SGLT2i…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Phase I/II trial of BMS-986,205 and nivolumab as first line therapy in hepatocellular carcinoma

Jasmine C. Huynh, May Cho, Arta M. Monjazeb et al. · 2023 · Investigational New Drugs

BACKGROUND: Indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) helps orchestrate immune suppression and checkpoint inhibitor resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). BMS-986,205 is a novel oral drug that potently and selectively inhibits IDO. This Phase I/II study evaluated the safety and tolerability of BMS-986,205 in combination with nivolumab as first-line therapy in advanced HCC. METHODS: IV on Day 1 of each 14-day cycle). The primary objective was to determine the safety and tolerability of this combination; secondary objectives were to obtain preliminary efficacy. RESULTS: Eight patients received a

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

A suite of engineered mice for interrogating psychedelic drug actions

Yi-Ting Chiu, Ariel Y. Deutch, Wei Wang et al. · 2026 · Nature Neuroscience

ABSTRACT Psychedelic drugs like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin have emerged as potentially transformative therapeutics for many neuropsychiatric diseases, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder,…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Vulnerability to Distraction in Schizophrenia

Chieffi S Iavarone A · 2015 · African Journal of Psychiatry

Attentional processes enhancing relevant information and attenuating competing irrelevant information are required for coherent and effective action. One of deficits that may characterize schizophrenia is the impairment of the ability in focusing on relevant information while inhibiting the irrelevant. The intrusion of irrelevant stimuli during information processing may impair cognitive and behavioral functioning. In this paper we review studies that investigated the vulnerability to distracting stimuli in schizophrenia by using visual interference paradigms, namely flanker, Stroop, and negat

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Does contextual diversity affect serial recall?

Dominic Guitard, Leonie M. Miller, Ian Neath et al. · 2019 · Journal of Cognitive Psychology

People are better at recalling lists of high- than low-frequency words but as Parmentier, Comesãna, and Soares [(2017). Disentangling the effects of word frequency and contextual diversity on serial recall performance. Quarterly Journal of…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Amygdala and nucleus accumbens involvement in appetitive extinction

Onno Kruse, S. Klein, Isabell Tapia León et al. · 2020 · Human Brain Mapping

Extinction of appetitive conditioning is regarded as an important model for the treatment of psychiatric disorders like addiction. However, very few studies have investigated its neural correlates. Therefore, we investigated neural…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Wearable EEG-Based Brain–Computer Interface for Stress Monitoring

Brian Premchand, Liyuan Liang, Kok Soon Phua et al. · 2024 · NeuroSci

Detecting stress is important for improving human health and potential, because moderate levels of stress may motivate people towards better performance at cognitive tasks, while chronic stress exposure causes impaired performance and health risks. We propose a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system to detect stress in the context of high-pressure work environments. The BCI system includes an electroencephalogram (EEG) headband with dry electrodes and an electrocardiogram (ECG) chest belt. We collected EEG and ECG data from 40 participants during two stressful cognitive tasks: the Cognitive Vig

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Single nucleotide polymorphism rs6716901 in SLC25A12 gene is associated with Asperger syndrome

Jaroslava Durdiaková, Varun Warrier, Simon Baron‐Cohen et al. · 2014 · Molecular Autism

BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are a group of developmental conditions which affect communication, social interactions and behaviour. Mitochondrial oxidative dysfunction has been suggested as a mechanism of autism based on the results of multiple genetic association and expression studies. SLC25A12 is a gene encoding a calcium-binding carrier protein that localizes to the mitochondria and is involved in the exchange of aspartate for glutamate in the inner membrane of the mitochondria regulating the cytosolic redox state. rs2056202 SNP in this gene has previously been associated w

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Electrophysiological indices of hierarchical speech processing differentially reflect the comprehension of speech in noise

Shyanthony R. Synigal, Andrew J. Anderson, Edmund C. Lalor · 2026 · eNeuro

ABSTRACT The past few years have seen an increase in the use of encoding models to explain neural responses to natural speech. The goal of these models is to characterize how the human brain converts acoustic energy into distinct linguistic representations that enable everyday speech comprehension. For example, researchers have shown that electroencephalography (EEG) data can be modeled in terms of acoustic features of speech, such as its amplitude envelope or spectrogram, linguistic features such as phonemes and phoneme probability, and higher-level linguistic features like context-based word

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

The role of plasma inflammatory markers in late-life depression and conversion to dementia: a 3-year follow-up study

Mariia Bocharova, Tom Borza, Leiv Otto Watne et al. · 2025 · Molecular Psychiatry

Late-life depression (LLD) has been linked to increased likelihood of dementia, although mechanisms responsible for this association remain largely unknown. One feature frequently observed in both LLD and dementia is elevated levels of plasma inflammatory markers. The present study aimed to compare the levels of 12 plasma inflammatory markers between older people with LLD and controls, and to explore whether these markers, along with clinical characteristics, can predict dementia in patients with LLD within 3 years of follow-up. Using multiple linear regression with stepwise adjustment, we com

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Psychological mechanisms of offset analgesia: The effect of expectancy manipulation

Tibor M. Szikszay, Wacław M. Adamczyk, Janina Panskus et al. · 2023 · PLoS ONE

A frequently used paradigm to quantify endogenous pain modulation is offset analgesia, which is defined as a disproportionate large reduction in pain following a small decrease in a heat stimulus. The aim of this study was to determine whether suggestion influences the magnitude of offset analgesia in healthy participants. A total of 97 participants were randomized into three groups (hypoalgesic group, hyperalgesic group, control group). All participants received four heat stimuli (two constant trials and two offset trials) to the ventral, non-dominant forearm while they were asked to rate the

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

On the usefulness of formal judgment tasks in syntax and in second-language research: The case of resumptive pronouns in English, Turkish, and Mandarin Chinese

John Hitz, Elaine J. Francis · 2016 · Linguistics

Abstract Gibson and Fedorenko (2013, The need for quantitative methods in syntax and semantics research, Language and Cognitive Processes 28(2), 88–124) have argued against the continued use of informally collected acceptability judgments…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Subthalamic deep brain stimulation in Parkinson׳s disease has no significant effect on perceptual timing in the hundreds of milliseconds range

Thomas Cope, Manon Grube, Arnab Mandal et al. · 2014 · Neuropsychologia

Bilateral, high-frequency stimulation of the basal ganglia (STN-DBS) is in widespread use for the treatment of the motor symptoms of Parkinson׳s disease (PD). We present here the first psychophysical investigation of the effect of STN-DBS upon perceptual timing in the hundreds of milliseconds range, with both duration-based (absolute) and beat-based (relative) tasks; 13 patients with PD were assessed with their STN-DBS 'on', 'off', and then 'on' again. Paired parametric analyses revealed no statistically significant differences for any task according to DBS status. We demonstrate, from the exa

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