Challenges in studying microplastics in human brain
A Monikh F, Materić D, Valsami-Jones E, Grossart HP, Altmann K, Holzinger R, Lynch I, Stubenrauch J, Peijnenburg W (2025). Nature Medicine (Matters Arising).
What they found
A published critique of Nihart et al. 2025 (the brain-plastic study). The authors argue that the study appears to face methodological challenges, such as limited contamination controls and lack of validation steps, which may affect the reliability of the reported brain concentrations.
- What it can't tell you
- A short commentary, not new data. We read only the opening paragraph; the full argument is paywalled. The original authors published a reply (Campen et al. 2025) that discusses digestion, possible phospholipid interference in the mass spectrometry and quality-control steps.
- Funding
- Not checked (full text inaccessible)
- Topics
- In the body, Methods
- Checked against
- Opening paragraph on nature.com (paywalled beyond); reply 10.1038/s41591-025-04046-2 opening paragraph; Crossref metadata