Sometime after it was published, Paul Lodder, a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam, had been trying without success to replicate the findings of a 2020 paper in Scientific Reports.
The original article was written by a group led by Rubén Herzog, of the Universidad de Valparaíso in Chile. Titled “A mechanistic model of the neural entropy increase elicited by psychedelic drugs,” the paper purported to help illuminate what happens in the brain under the influence of substances like LSD.
But the findings of the study wouldn’t replicate. And unlike some researchers who might blow off criticism of their work, or blame the replicators for the failure, Herzog sent Lodder the scripts his team had used.
Lodder found the problem quickly. As Herzog related to Retraction Watch, Lodder (whose schedule has been challenging the past few weeks as we’ve played phone tag) [See update on this post.]:
Continue reading A grad student finds a ‘typo’ in a psychedelic study’s script that leads to a retraction