时尚街拍网A prominent German neuroscientist committed scientific misconduct in research in which he claimed to have developed a brain-monitoring technique able to read certain thoughts of paralysed people, Germany鈥檚 main research agency has found.
The DFG鈥檚 investigation into Niels Birbaumer鈥檚 high-profile work found that data in two papers were incomplete and that the scientific analysis was flawed 鈥?although it did not comment on whether the approach was valid. In a 19 September statement, the agency, which funded some of the work, said it was imposing some of its most severe sanctions to Birbaumer, who has positions at the University of T眉bingen in Germany and the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland. The DFG has banned Birbaumer from applying for its grants and from serving as a DFG evaluator for five years. The agency has also recommended the retraction of the two papers1,2 published in PLoS Biology, and says that it will ask him to return the grant money that he used to generate the data underpinning the papers.
鈥淭he DFG has found scientific misconduct on my part and has imposed sanctions. I must therefore accept that I was unable to refute the allegations made against me,鈥?Birbaumer said in a statement e-mailed to Nature in response to the DFG鈥檚 findings. In a subsequent phone conversation with Nature, Birbaumer added that he could not comment further on the findings because the DFG has not yet provided him with specific details on the reasoning behind the decisions.
Birbaumer says he stands by his studies, which he says, 鈥渟how that it is possible to communicate with patients who are completely paralysed, through computer-based analysis of blood flow and brain currents鈥?
The DFG also found that Ujwal Chaudhary, first author of both of the PLoS Biology papers and a member of Birbaumer鈥檚 team at the University of T眉bingen and the Wyss Center, had committed scientific misconduct. The agency banned Chaudhary from applying for its grants and from serving as a DFG evaluator for three years. Chaudhary did not respond to a request for comment from Nature.
Brain activity
The misconduct findings against Birbaumer and Chaudhary relate to research conducted in 2013鈥?4, in which they worked with four people with the neurodegenerative condition motor-neuron disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, who were being cared for at home by relatives. The scientists recorded the patients鈥?brain activity using sensors on their scalps. In a 2017 paper1, Birbaumer and his colleagues reported that their analysis of the recordings allowed them to determine whether the patients were silently answering 鈥榶es鈥?or 鈥榥o鈥?to simple questions. The paper attracted extensive media attention.
In the summary of its investigation committee鈥檚 findings, the DFG says that the scientists did not film patient examinations in full, did not appropriately show details of their analyses in the papers and made false statements.
The DFG stressed that the scientists had a 鈥渟pecial responsibility鈥?towards seriously ill people participating in innovative research. It said that they had not met this responsibility, 鈥渋n particular by failing to document exactly the entire research procedure鈥?
Birbaumer says that filming often had to be interrupted to meet the participants鈥?immediate care needs, such as the need to suction saliva from their mouths. 鈥淔or this reason, we did not upload data that we collected but had to declare as not analyzable in the publication. In addition, we did not describe every single step of the complex data evaluation and did not fully document it with accompanying video recordings,鈥?he said in his e-mailed statement.
Data reanalysed
The DFG and the University of T眉bingen opened separate investigations into the work in earlier this year, after a whistle-blower raised concerns about the research. Martin Sp眉ler, who was then a postdoc in informatics at T眉bingen, said he was unable to reproduce the findings when he reanalysed the published data. An independent expert commissioned by the DFG confirmed Sp眉ler鈥檚 findings, as did two additional whistle-blowers, according to the agency鈥檚 statement. The DFG commission found that the researchers had not analysed their data correctly. Four other co-authors of the studies were not investigated.
Birbaumer and his team published a rebuttal to Sp眉ler鈥檚 criticisms2 in April this year 鈥?the second paper whose retraction the DFG recommended. PLoS Biology added expressions of concerns to both studies shortly after the DFG announced the findings of its investigation.
The University of T眉bingen鈥檚 investigation into Birbaumer and Chaudhary鈥檚 work concluded in June that the two had committed guilty of scientific misconduct.
