Study that reported microplastics in human brains might have relied on untrustworthy data

A well-placed study that was published in Nature Medicine last month used “duplicated images” to report high levels of microplastics in the human brain tissue.

While the usage of the wrong images does not alter the findings of the study, the amount of microplastics depicted in the pictures of the paper was overestimated, researchers of the study told The Transmitter.

The images show particles extracted from postmortem human brain tissue, which were later analysed to identify their chemical composition. The duplications were initially flagged by an anonymous comment on PubPeer, a platform for post-publication peer review.

Confirming that the images in question had been duplicated, Matthew Campen, a principal investigator, said, “These images from ATR-FTIR [an analytical chemistry method] in the supplement were assembled without enough attention to detail. We have the correct images and will submit shortly. The mistake is purely clerical and in no way alters the conclusions of our manuscript.”

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The study was picked up by around 400 news outlets after it was published in Nature Medicine on February 3, according to Altmetric, a data science company that tracks online mentions of research articles.

Nature Medicine’s spokesperson said, “We are aware of the concerns flagged on PubPeer and are looking into the matter. We are committed to addressing any issues whether they are raised during the submission process for a paper or post-publication, and take our responsibility to maintain the accuracy of the scientific record very seriously.”

Brain tissue samples collected in 2024 from 24 individuals contained a median of 4.9 milligrams of micro- and nanoplastics per gram of tissue, according to findings by Campen and his team. Based on this estimate, an average brain could hold an amount of microplastics equivalent to a plastic spoon, Campen said in interviews with several major news outlets.

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Oliver Jones, a professor of chemistry at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology who was not involved in the study, commented that the reported microplastic levels in the brain are “higher than those reported in sewage sludge, which seems unlikely.”