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.
Lidia Y. X. Wong, Stephen J. Gray, David A. Gallo · 2018 · Cognitive Neuroscience
We report 4 experiments aiming to replicate and extend the finding that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex after encoding and just prior to retrieval improves accuracy on an episodic…
View details →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
View details →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
View details →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
View details →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…
View details →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
View details →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
View details →Aung Naing, Alain P. Algazi, Gerald S. Falchook et al. · 2022 · Cancer
BACKGROUND: Targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO1) pathways is an appealing option for cancer treatment. METHODS: The open-label, phase 1/2 ECHO-203 study evaluated the safety, tolerability,…
View details →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
View details →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
View details →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
View details →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…
View details →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…
View details →Sulggi A. Lee, Joel Mefford, Yong Huang et al. · 2016 · AIDS
OBJECTIVE: Plasma kynurenine/tryptophan ratio, a biomarker of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 (IDO) activity, is a strong independent predictor of mortality in HIV-infected Ugandans initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) and may play a key…
View details →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…
View details →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…
View details →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
View details →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
View details →Pradeep Kumar Singh, Jennifer A. Rybak, Ryan J Schuck et al. · 2024 · Science Advances
Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) regulate many cellular functions and are important targets in pharmaceutical development, particularly in cancer treatment. EGFR and EphA2 are two key RTKs that are associated with oncogenic phenotypes.…
View details →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
View details →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…
View details →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
View details →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
View details →Charlotte Seijger, Joost Raaphorst, Judith M. Vonk et al. · 2021 · Respiration
BACKGROUND: Non-invasive home mechanical ventilation (HMV) is a complex treatment in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) patients, due to a presumed poor adherence, variable symptom improvement, and uncertainty regarding survival benefits.…
View details →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
View details →Ian C. Fiebelkorn · 2021 · European Journal of Neuroscience
Recent research suggests that environmental sampling is a fundamentally rhythmic process (Benedetto et al., 2019; Fiebelkorn & Kastner, 2019; Schroeder et al., 2010). In primates, both attention-related sampling and exploratory eye…
View details →Kaiwen Cheng, Aolin Ding, Lianfang Jiang et al. · 2019 · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Previous studies have demonstrated the automatic vigilance effect for faces and pictures and have attributed it to the brain's prioritized unconscious evaluation of early evolutionary stimuli that are critical to survival. Whether this effect exists for evolutionarily more recent stimuli, such as written words, has become the center of much debate. Apparently contradicting results have been reported in different languages, such as Hebrew, English, and Traditional Chinese (TC), with regard to the unconscious processing of emotional words in breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS). Our cur
View details →Kelly L. Whiteford, Lucas S. Baltzell, Matt Chiu et al. · 2025 · Nature Communications
Musical training has been reported to be associated with enhanced neural processing of sounds, as measured via the frequency following response (FFR), implying the potential for human subcortical neural plasticity. We conducted a…
View details →Klaus Oberauer · 2022 · Psychological Science
Some theorists argue that working memory is limited to a discrete number of items and that additional items are not encoded at all. Adam et al. (2017) presented evidence supporting this hypothesis: Participants reproduced visual features of up to six items in a self-chosen order. After the third or fourth response, error distributions were indistinguishable from guessing. I present four experiments with young adults (each N = 24) reexamining this finding. Experiment 1 presented items slowly and sequentially. Experiment 2 presented them simultaneously but longer than in the experiments of Adam
View details →Angelo Pirrone, Wen Wen, Sheng Li et al. · 2018 · Perception
Recent research has shown that adults and children with autism spectrum disorders have a more conservative decision criterion in perceptual decision making compared to neurotypical individuals, meaning that autistic participants prioritise…
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