A journal has finally issued a correction following a seven-year-old exchange on PubPeer in which the authors promised to fix issues “as soon as possible.” But after following up with the authors and the journal, it’s still not clear where the delay occurred.
Neuron published the paper, “Common DISC1 Polymorphisms Disrupt Wnt/GSK3β Signaling and Brain Development,” in 2011. It has been cited 101 times, 28 of which came after concerns were first raised, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
It first appeared on PubPeer in April 2018, when commenter Epipactis voethii first pointed out figures 2 and 3 of the paper had potential image duplication.
Shortly after, Li-Huei Tsai, the co-corresponding author and the director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, responded on PubPeer saying the authors were “currently working with the journal to resolve this issue.”
That same month, PubPeer commenters debated the merits of the image similarity accusations, and some raised concerns about the statistical analyses, questioning the tests used and validity of p values.
The authors were silent until earlier this year, when PubPeer commenter Actinopolyspora biskrensis reignited the discussion with more possible instances of image overlap in the article. In April, Tsai commented yet again that the authors “have found the original data and are working with the Journal to correct the errors.” She did not respond to Actinopolyspora’s request for original images.
Tsai forwarded our request for comment — including our request for clarification on why the correction took as long as it did — to a communications director for the Picower Institute, who sent us the text from the May 2025 correction notice. The notice says the “duplication errors” in six figures were “mistakenly,” “erroneously” or “incorrectly” in the paper. The authors said they “mixed up” images and made several cropping errors, but said the errors were made post-analysis.
Queen Muse, the head of media for Cell Press, which publishes Neuron, told us the journal has “no comment beyond what’s included in the published correction notice, which outlines the relevant details.”
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