Date: 16 June 2008 Dear Editors and Colleagues: On May 8th, 2008 Human Brain Mapping (HBM) published a paper by A. Shmuel and D. Leopold entitled “Neuronal correlates of spontaneous fluctuations in fMRI signals in monkey visual cortex: Implications for functional connectivity at rest” (DOI: 10.1002/hbm.20580). The authors are former postdoctoral fellows of mine and the data were collected in my laboratory, so it is with some unhappiness that I write to you to disavow the paper’s contents and conclusions, and to let you know that my colleagues and I are preparing a rebuttal for publication. My objections to the paper are both technical and ethical. The technical problem is that most of the measurements reported in the paper to be “at rest” were taken from the prestimulus interval of long observation periods with multiple trials during which visual stimuli were presented. The data came from another study of my laboratory (Shmuel, Augath, Oeltermann and Logothetis, 2006). In fact, a grey screen with a significant flicker at 30 and 60 Hz evoked electrical cortical activity, making it wrong to suppose that the comparison of neural with hemodynamic signals was within a rest period during which spontaneous activity alone prevailed (details in the rebuttal). This renders the conclusion in the paper, and thus the paper itself, invalid. These points were pointed out to the authors and to the editors as well, but the editors chose to accept it even in spite of the questionable ethical conduct of the authors, which the editors were also aware of, or should have been aware of (see below). In short, the report does not pertain to “spontaneous activity” and the findings are trivial, already having been demonstrated in our previous publications. The ethical problem is that Shmuel and Leopold submitted this work without my knowledge or permission, after I had pointed out the problems with the data they were using, and after Shmuel agreed that the interstimulus data were inappropriate for this analysis and that new data would have to be collected before the work could be presented. Shmuel did not make me aware of this publication until 6 weeks (19 April 2008) after the paper was accepted for publication (6 March 2008) and a few days before the publication-deadline, when he invited me to become a co-author. It is worth pointing out that he had invited Leopold to act as a coauthor in this paper but excluded from authorship the collaborators who did the actual data acquisition for him. When I tried at that late stage to intervene to prevent publication of this flawed work, I was frustrated both by Shmuel and Leopold and by the editors of HBM. The editor-in-chief and the two associate editors, who were responsible for the special HBM issue, entirely ignored my comments and the preliminary data analysis I had sent them to point out the serious flaws of the study. They also ignored the request of the Max Planck Society (MPS) to remove the name of the society from the funding sources of this type of work in the HTML version of the document; at least until today (16 June 2008). MPS has explicitly indicated that the accreditation is wrong, and that it does not want to be associated in any way with this particular publication. I would be happy to give you further details of this unfortunate business, including my correspondence both with the authors and with the editors of HBM, should you be interested. But these details are not central to the point of this message: the published paper is profoundly flawed and does not represent the quality of work that I hope you have all come to expect from my laboratory. It has also been published in a way that many in the scientific community would regard as outrageous. I am taking steps to make this matter public and to expose the flaws in the paper, but in the meanwhile I hope you will accept this simple disavowal and not heed or cite the work reported. With kind regards, Prof. Nikos K. Logothetis MPI for Biological Cybernetics Spemannstr. 38, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany Tel: +49 7071 601-650 Tel: +49 7071 601-651 Secretary Fax: +49 7071 601 652 Vol 454|3 July 2008 NEWS Neuroscientist: my data published without authorization are ‘misleading’ The director of a top laboratory in Germany has permission to use data generated there. charged that two of his former research students Although he agreed at first, Logothetis with- took data from his laboratory without his per- drew his permission when he realized that the mission and published scientifically incorrect data — from functional magnetic resonance interpretations of them against his advice. imaging studies on monkey brains — were Neuroscientist Nikos Logothetis (pictured), being used to support a theory about sponta- of the Max Planck Institute for Biological neous brain activity. The data had been col- Cybernetics in Tübingen, further claims that lected when monkeys were looking at a grey the journal involved, Human Brain Mapping, but flickering LED screen. “The protocol was acted incorrectly by publishing the paper after just inappropriate for analysis of spontaneous he told them the data were inappropriate. He brain activity,” says Logothetis. says the journal has denied him the right to a Several months later, he says, he was timely reply. surprised to receive an e-mail from Shmuel One of the two editors-in-chief of Human containing a complete paper using the same Brain Mapping, Peter Fox of data, co-authored with another the University of Texas Health “The journal used the former research student, David Science Center in San Antonio, Max Planck Society Leopold, who worked in the told Nature that the paper was to excuse their own labs between 1992 and 2003, correctly refereed, but declined where he collected some of to add details. mismanagement of the data himself. Leopold is Logothetis is furious about the case.” now at the National Institute the publication of data, which of Mental Health in Bethesda, he believes will mislead the field, and about Maryland. Shmuel invited Logothetis to join the fact that the authors of the paper allege that as third author, telling him that the paper had wrote directly to the Max Planck Society he tried to stop them publishing the data for already been accepted for publication and (MPS), which runs 80 research institutes in personal reasons. would appear online in a few days. It had been Germany, claiming that Logothetis was trying The affair began in the spring, when Amir accepted six weeks earlier. to prevent him and Shmuel from publishing Shmuel, who worked in Logothetis’s labora- Matters escalated. “I told him that the data data for personal reasons. tories from 2002 to 2007 and is now at the were not publishable,” says Logothetis, who After consultation with Logothetis, MPS Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill also wrote to Fox proposing that the paper vice-president Herbert Jäckle wrote to the University in Canada, asked Logothetis for should not be published. But Leopold then authors giving approval for the use of the data, Turkish politics blamed for board block A prominent Turkish geologist is being denied a Istanbul Technical University, says that he has Akaydin, who heads the inter-university board. top spot in the nation’s higher-education system been blocked from joining Turkey’s council “He’s a good guy, a very well-known intellectual because, he says, his political views are out of of higher education (YÖK) and subjected to in Turkey.” step with those of the current government. spurious ethics investigations because he Nominations typically pass through a Celâl S¸engör (pictured), a professor at has spoken out against the government. straightforward approval process, but S¸engör “There is an atmosphere of terror,” says that YÖK’s leadership is holding up his he says. “It’s unbelievable what’s candidacy. This spring, he says, the leadership going on.” opened an investigation into a previously YÖK is a 21-member council that dismissed ethics charge concerning S¸engör’s oversees Turkey’s universities. One- ties to a family business. Then, just last week, third of the council is nominated S¸engör says he was informed of a second by the inter-university board investigation into his having allegedly — a group of university rectors and travelled abroad without university approval. other academic representatives. S¸engör believes that he is being persecuted In January, the board advanced because he is an outspoken critic of Turkey’s S¸engör’s name for a position on current, Islamist-rooted AKP ruling party. “They YÖK. The reason for the nomination want to get rid of anybody who is against them,” was straightforward, says Mustafa he says. 6 © 2008 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Please Login or Register Search NewsBlog: >> July 2008 >> June 2008 Posted by Andrea Gawrylewski >> May 2008 [Entry posted at 2nd July 2008 09:51 PM GMT] >> April 2008 View comments(6) | Comment on this blog >> March 2008 >> February 2008 A prominent neuroscientist is accusing two former >> January 2008 researchers in his lab of taking data without his permission and publishing misleading interpretations of >> December 2007 them against his wishes. >> November 2007 >> October 2007 Nikos Logothetis, director of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tubingen, Germany, says >> September 2007 that two former researchers working in his lab took fMRI >> August 2007 data from monkey brain scans without his permission >> July 2007 and made misleading interpretations in a paper published this month in the journal Human Brain >> June 2007 Mapping. In addition, the journal has not guaranteed >> May 2007 him an opportunity to publish a response to the >> April 2007 findings, he told Nature.