A domestic research team announced that it had directly observed brain activity with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the first time in the world, drawing international attention, but the paper was voluntarily retracted after the technology failed to be reproduced for more than two years and allegations of manipulation arose. In the government's annual "Top 100 national R&D achievements" program, a designation was canceled for the first time in the 20 years since its introduction.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 26th, as the international journal Science retracted the related paper by Park Jang-yeon of Sungkyunkwan University, the designation of the "Top 100" selected in 2023 based on this achievement also entered the cancellation process.
The researchers presented the "DIANA" technology, which captures neural signals on a millisecond (ms, one-thousandth of a second) timescale and a cell-layer spatial scale using only a conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) device without electrodes. In mouse experiments, they observed the process of signals moving to the somatosensory cortex in 0.005-second increments, showing a speed about eight times faster than existing technologies. The team expected that this technology would bring major advances in understanding brain diseases and studying cognitive functions. According to Google Scholar, the paper has been cited 108 times and was included in the "Top 100 national R&D achievements" selected by the Ministry of Science and ICT in 2023.
The study was published in Science in Aug. 2022 by a joint research team including Park Jang-yeon and Seoul National University professors Kwak Ji-hyun and Lee Jong-ho. The researchers presented the "DIANA" technology, which captures neural signals on a millisecond (ms, one-thousandth of a second) timescale and a cell-layer spatial scale using only a conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) device without electrodes. In mouse experiments, they observed the process of signals moving to the somatosensory cortex in 0.005-second increments, showing a speed about eight times faster than existing technologies. The team expected that this technology would bring major advances in understanding brain diseases and studying cognitive functions. According to Google Scholar, the paper has been cited 108 times and was included in the "Top 100 national R&D achievements" selected by the Ministry of Science and ICT in 2023.
However, controversy began in May 2023 when Sungkyunkwan University distinguished professor Kim Sung-gi published a study on the preprint server bioRxiv stating that the DIANA results could not be reproduced. In Aug. of the same year, Science said it was concerned that "with the methods presented in the paper, reproducing the results is difficult." Questions were raised about the MRI data selection method, and multiple research teams conducted experiments on animals and humans but did not obtain similar results.
Afterward, at Science's request, the team conducted additional verification, but signal patterns that did not match the original claims were found. It was confirmed that signals that looked like brain neural activity might be "noise" generated by the MRI equipment. In the end, the researchers acknowledged flaws in the core conclusions and chose to retract the paper.
Park said in writing, "I organized the newly discovered signals and the results of the reproduction experiments and posted them to bioRxiv on 4th," adding, "I plan to supplement the content for resubmission to a journal in the future."
The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to closely monitor the process in which the Sungkyunkwan University Research Ethics Committee verifies whether there was research misconduct, such as data manipulation, during the paper's publication process. If necessary, it will take measures such as deliberation by the sanction review panel of the specialized management agency.
A Ministry of Science and ICT official said, "Even after selection, the Top 100 can be canceled through committee deliberation if there is an external objection," adding, "The 2023 selection was made through evaluations by 100 experts from industry, academia, and research, and a public verification process."