e-ISSN: Pending

Browse the failure-mode index

244 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Neuroscience. 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 ReportNeuroscience

How does Stroop interference change with practice? A reappraisal from the musical Stroop paradigm.

Laurent Grégoire, Pierre Perruchet, Bénédicte Poulin-Charronnat · 2014 · Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition

Most earlier studies investigating the evolution of the Stroop effect with the amount of reading practice have reported data consistent with an inverted U-shaped curve, whereby the Stroop effect appears early during reading acquisition,…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Music and Language Processing Share Behavioral and Cerebral Features

Clara E. James · 2012 · Frontiers in Psychology

A commentary on Musical expertise and statistical learning of musical and linguistic structures by Schön, D., and François, C. (2011). Front. Psychology 2:167. doi: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2011.00167 Both language and music consist of discrete elements organized in embedded hierarchical structures. Schön and François nicely expose in this review that musical expertise facilitates learning of both linguistic and musical structures. At the behavioral level, the musicians did not outperform the nonmusicians. However, ERP analyses showed that acquisition of boundary perception (segmentation) between units

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Comparing fear and anxiety chemosignals: Do they modulate facial muscle activity and facilitate identifying facial expressions?

Nuno Gomes, Bettina M. Pause, Monique A. M. Smeets et al. · 2023 · Chemical Senses

Fear and anxiety are the most frequently studied emotional states in chemosignal research. Despite differences between these two emotional states, findings from research using fear and anxiety body odors (BOs) are often treated as part of…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Predicting ‘Brainage’ in late childhood to adolescence (6-17yrs) using structural MRI, morphometric similarity, and machine learning

Daniel Griffiths-King, Amanda Wood, Jan Novák · 2023 · Scientific Reports

Brain development is regularly studied using structural MRI. Recently, studies have used a combination of statistical learning and large-scale imaging databases of healthy children to predict an individual's age from structural MRI. This data-driven, predicted 'Brainage' typically differs from the subjects chronological age, with this difference a potential measure of individual difference. Few studies have leveraged higher-order or connectomic representations of structural MRI data for this Brainage approach. We leveraged morphometric similarity as a network-level approach to structural MRI t

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Adaptive scaling of reward in episodic memory: a replication study

Alice Mason, Casimir J. H. Ludwig, Simon Farrell · 2016 · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Reward is thought to enhance episodic memory formation via dopaminergic consolidation. Bunzeck, Dayan, Dolan, and Duzel [(2010). A common mechanism for adaptive scaling of reward and novelty. Human Brain Mapping, 31, 1380-1394] provided functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioural evidence that reward and episodic memory systems are sensitive to the contextual value of a reward-whether it is relatively higher or lower-as opposed to absolute value or prediction error. We carried out a direct replication of their behavioural study and did not replicate their finding that memory p

View details →
Failed Experiment ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Microglia-derived nanovesicles synchronize macroautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy for Alzheimer’s disease therapy

Min Li, Min Li, Shuang Chen et al. · 2025 · Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy

Dysregulated autophagy is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet the extent of impairment in macroautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) remains unclear. Here, we show that both pathways are disrupted in AD model mice, preceding β-amyloid accumulation and driving disease progression. However, therapeutic autophagy modulation is severely restricted by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). To overcome this, we developed Microglia-Liposome Fusion Extrusion (MiLi-FE), a method to engineer microglia-derived nanovesicles (AR@ENV) for the codelivery of AR7 (a CMA inducer) and rapamycin (a mac

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

TREM2 expression level is critical for microglial state, metabolic capacity and efficacy of TREM2 agonism

Astrid Feiten, Kilian Dahm, Kai Schlepckow et al. · 2026 · Nature Communications

Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) is a central regulator of microglial activity and loss-of-function coding variants are major risk factors for late onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD). To better understand the molecular and functional changes associated with TREM2 signalling in microglia, we generated a TREM2 reporter mouse. In APP transgenic animals, bulk RNA-sequencing of isolated microglia sorted based on reporter expression highlighted TREM2 level-related changes in major immunometabolic pathways, and enrichment of genes in oxidative phosphorylation and cholesterol met

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Tactile processing in mouse cortex depends on action context

Eric A. Finkel, Yi-Ting Chang, Rajan Dasgupta et al. · 2024 · Cell Reports

The brain receives constant tactile input, but only a subset guides ongoing behavior. Actions associated with tactile stimuli thus endow them with behavioral relevance. It remains unclear how the relevance of tactile stimuli affects…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Accelerated transcranial magnetic stimulation for psychological distress in advanced cancer: A phase 2a feasibility and preliminary efficacy clinical trial

James Downar, James Downar, Julie Lapenskie et al. · 2024 · Palliative Medicine

Background: Psychological and existential suffering affects many people with advanced illness, and current therapeutic options have limited effectiveness. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a safe and effective therapy…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Null effect of perceived drum pattern complexity on the experience of groove

Olivier Senn, Florian Hoesl, Toni Bechtold et al. · 2024 · PLoS ONE

There is a broad consensus in groove research that the experience of groove, understood as a pleasurable urge to move in response to music, is to some extent related to the complexity of the rhythm. Specifically, music with medium rhythmic complexity has been found to motivate greater urge to move compared to low or high complexity music (inverted-U hypothesis). Studies that confirmed the inverted-U hypothesis usually based their measure of complexity on the rhythmic phenomenon of syncopation, where rhythms with more and/or stronger syncopation are considered to be more complex than less synco

View details →
Replication FailureOpen accessNeuroscience

Pridopidine in early-stage manifest Huntington’s disease: a phase 3 trial

Ralf Reilmann, Andrew Feigin, Anne Rosser et al. · 2025 · Nature Medicine

Huntington's disease (HD) is a rare, neurodegenerative disorder for which only symptomatic treatments are available. The PROOF-HD study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of pridopidine, a selective Sigma-1 receptor agonist, in HD. The primary and key secondary endpoints, change in total functional capacity (TFC) and composite Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (cUHDRS) score at week 65, were not met in the overall population. The TFC least-squares mean difference between pridopidine and placebo was -0.18 (95% confidence i

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Precision fMRI reveals that the language network exhibits adult-like left-hemispheric lateralization by 4 years of age

Ola Ozernov‐Palchik, Amanda O’Brien, Elizabeth Jiachen Lee et al. · 2026 · Nature Communications

In adults, left hemisphere (LH) damage often leads to aphasia, but many cases of early damage leave linguistic processing intact, with a functional language system developing in the right hemisphere. To explain this early apparent equipotentiality of the two hemispheres for language, some have proposed that the language system is more bilateral during early development and becomes increasingly left-lateralized with age. We examined language lateralization using fMRI in two large developmental cohorts (total n=273 children aged 4-16 years; n=107 adults). Strong, adult-like LH lateralization (in

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Does testing impair relational processing? Failed attempts to replicate the negative testing effect.

Katherine A. Rawson, Kathryn T. Wissman, Kalif E. Vaughn · 2015 · Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition

Recent research on testing effects (i.e., practice tests are more effective than restudy for enhancing subsequent memory) has focused on explaining when and why testing enhances memory. Of particular interest for present purposes, Zaromb…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Melatonin as a Guardian of Mitochondria: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Potential in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Yanyu Bao, Guoying Miao, Nannan He et al. · 2026 · Biology

Mitochondrial dysfunction is a key early pathological process in neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), leading to oxidative stress, impaired energy metabolism, and neuronal apoptosis prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. Although mitochondria represent important therapeutic targets, effective interventions targeting mitochondrial function remain limited. This review summarizes current evidence regarding the mechanisms by which melatonin protects mitochondria and evaluates its therapeutic relevance, with a primary focus on Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease-the ma

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Combined lipid emulsion and ACLS resuscitation following bupivacaine- and hypoxia-induced cardiovascular collapse in unanesthetized swine.

Brent A Bushey, Victor H Auld, John E Volk et al. · 2011 · PubMed

This study examined whether combining lipid emulsion and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) improves survival in an unanesthetized swine model of bupivacaine- and hypoxia-induced cardiovascular collapse. Arterial and venous catheters and…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Disconnected and Hyperactive: A Replication of Sensorimotor Cortex Abnormalities in Patients With Schizophrenia During Proactive Response Inhibition

Christopher J. Wertz, Faith M Hanlon, Nicholas A. Shaff et al. · 2018 · Schizophrenia Bulletin

Inhibitory failure represents a core dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia (SP), which has predominantly been tested in the literature using reactive (ie, altering behavior after a stimulus) rather than proactive (ie, purposefully…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Hierarchical interactions between sensory cortices defy predictive coding

Jacob A. Westerberg, Pieter R. Roelfsema · 2025 · Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Perceptual experience depends on recurrent interactions between lower and higher cortices. One theory, predictive coding, posits that feedback from higher to lower brain regions decreases neuronal activity predicted by higher-level representations. Despite the widespread adoption of predictive coding in neuroscience, the correspondence to neurophysiological findings in sensory cortices remains elusive. Here, we review how the canonical patterns of intra- and inter-cortical interactions that occur during perception and shifts of attention deviate from those predicted by predictive coding. We ar

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

TSANN-TG: Temporal–Spatial Attention Neural Networks with Task-Specific Graph for EEG Emotion Recognition

Chao Jiang, Yingying Dai, Yunheng Ding et al. · 2024 · Brain Sciences

Electroencephalography (EEG)-based emotion recognition is increasingly pivotal in the realm of affective brain-computer interfaces. In this paper, we propose TSANN-TG (temporal-spatial attention neural network with a task-specific graph), a novel neural network architecture tailored for enhancing feature extraction and effectively integrating temporal-spatial features. TSANN-TG comprises three primary components: a node-feature-encoding-and-adjacency-matrices-construction block, a graph-aggregation block, and a graph-feature-fusion-and-classification block. Leveraging the distinct temporal sca

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Majority language skill, not measures of bilingualism, predicts executive attention in bilingual children

David Giguere, Daniel J. Dickson, Michelle K. Tulloch et al. · 2021 · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Evidence is mixed regarding whether and why bilingual children might be advantaged in the development of executive functions. Five preregistered hypotheses regarding sources of a bilingual advantage were tested with data from 102 Spanish-English bilingual children and 25 English monolingual children who were administered a test of executive attention, the flanker task, at 7, 8, and 9 years of age. Measures of the children's early and concurrent bilingual exposure and their concurrent English and Spanish skill were available from a larger longitudinal study in which these children participated.

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Exploring Bottom-Up Visual Processing and Visual Hallucinations in Parkinson's Disease With Dementia

Nicholas Murphy, Alison Killen, Rajnish Kumar Gupta et al. · 2021 · Frontiers in Neurology

Visual hallucinations (VH) are a common symptom of Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), affecting up to 65% of cases. Integrative models of their etiology posit that a decline in executive control of the visuo-perceptual system is a primary mechanism of VH generation. The role of bottom-up processing in the manifestation of VH in this condition is still not clear although visual evoked potential (VEP) differences have been associated with VH at an earlier stage of PD. Here we compared the amplitude and latency pattern reversal VEPs in healthy controls ( n = 21) and PDD patients ( n = 34) w

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

Failure to replicate talker-specific syntactic adaptation.

Linda Liu, Zachary Burchill, Michael K. Tanenhaus et al. · 2017 · eScholarship (California Digital Library)

Sentence understanding is affected by recent experience. Animportant open question is whether this reflects adaptationto the statistics of the input. Support for this hypothesiscomes from the recent finding that listeners can…

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Computational genetics analysis of grey matter density in Alzheimer’s disease

Amanda Zieselman, Jonathan Fisher, Ting Hu et al. · 2014 · BioData Mining

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of progressive dementia and there is currently no known cure. The cause of onset is not fully understood but genetic factors are expected to play a significant role. We present here a bioinformatics approach to the genetic analysis of grey matter density as an endophenotype for late onset Alzheimer's disease. Our approach combines machine learning analysis of gene-gene interactions with large-scale functional genomics data for assessing biological relationships. RESULTS: We found a statistically significant synergistic interaction among t

View details →