Dr. William Armstead, the corresponding author of the article entitled, “Inhaled Nitric Oxide Protects Cerebral Autoregulation and Reduces Hippocampal Neuronal Cell Necrosis after Traumatic Brain Injury in Newborn and Juvenile Pigs” (by Hugh Hekierski, Philip Pastor, Victor Curvello, and William M. Armstead; J Neurotrauma 2019;36(4):630–638; DOI: 10.1089/neu.2018.5824) has requested, via email, a full retraction of the published paper since “substantive questions have arisen regarding the findings, presentation and conclusions reported in the paper that could not be answered with available source data.”
On three separate occasions, both the publisher and editor requested additional information detailing the specifics of the questions which were raised that invalidated the findings in the study, but did not receive a response from Dr. Armstead. Despite being unable to ascertain more unambiguous information, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neurotrauma agreed to Dr. Armstead's request for a retraction after receiving agreements from the article's coauthors.
Notably, Dr. Armstead also requested the retraction of two additional articles published in Journal of Neurotrauma,1,2 making the same claim for all three articles. The two other articles are retracted separately.3,4
The editor and publisher of Journal of Neurotrauma is committed to preserving the accuracy of scientific literature.
References
- 1. Armstead, W.M., Riley, J., and Vavilala, M.S. (2017). Sex and age differences in epinephrine mechanisms and outcomes after brain injury. J. Neurotrauma 34, 1666–1675. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Retracted]
- 2. Armstead, W.M., Riley, J., and Vavilala, M.S. (2016). Norepinephrine protects cerebral autoregulation and reduces hippocampal necrosis after traumatic brain injury via blockade of ERK MAPK and IL-6 in juvenile pigs. J. Neurotrauma 33, 1761–1767. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Retracted]
- 3. Retraction of: Sex and age differences in epinephrine mechanisms and outcomes after brain injury (DOI: 10.1089/neu.2016.4770). J. Neurotrauma 2022;39, 894. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 4. Retraction of: Norepinephrine protects cerebral autoregulation and reduces hippocampal necrosis after traumatic brain injury via blockade of ERK MAPK and IL-6 in juvenile pigs (DOI: 10.1089/neu.2015.4290). J. Neurotrauma 2022;39, 893. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Retracted]