Correction to: “Hippocampal mutant APP and amyloid beta-induced cognitive decline, dendritic spine loss, defective autophagy, mitophagy and mitochondrial abnormalities in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease”
Human Molecular Genetics, Volume 27, Issue 8, 15 April 2018, Pages 1332–1342, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddy042
In October 2022, a reader highlighted commonalities in behavioral data presented in this article by Maria Manczak, et al., and in a prior article with overlapping authors: “Hippocampal phosphorylated tau induced cognitive decline, dendritic spine loss and mitochondrial abnormalities in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease,” Ramesh Kandimalla, et al., Human Molecular Genetics, Volume 27, Issue 1, 01 January 2018, Pages 30–40, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddx381.
The journal's editorial team investigated, and the authors subsequently acknowledged the genetic background of wild-type (WT) mice was the same. The corresponding author apologized for the lack of transparency about the overlapping data. Specifically:
• The Wt data (dark grey line) in Figure 1C from April 2018 duplicated the Wt data (red line) in Figure 1C from January 2018.
• The Wt data (dark grey line) in Figure 1D from April 2018 duplicated to Wt data (dark grey line) in Figure 1D from January 2018.
The editors confirmed this overlap does not impact the study results.
Questions were also raised about the similar but non-identical WT data in Figure 1B of both 2018 articles. The authors subsequently explained that some of the mice in the study were removed from the analysis during the Rotarod Test, and after consultation with the animal ethics committee overseeing their work, they took the decision to replace these mice. Although this replacement was not disclosed, this does not impact the results of the study.