After this article 1 was published, concerns were raised regarding results presented in Figs 234.Specifically: The Fig 2A Control panel of this article 1 appears similar to the Fig 4a Control panel in 2, despite the articles reporting different ages of the rats included in these control groups. The Fig 3A Control 40X and 100X images of this article 1 appear similar to the Fig 5a Control 4X and 10X images in 2, despite the articles reporting different ages of the rats in these control groups. The number of animals in each group in Fig 1A and the S1Table appears different.
The PLOS One Editors (2026) studied this question.