A paper in Science report that critical components of the most cited research on Alzheimer's disease in the last two decades may be fraudulent.
Published in Nature in 2006, the highly influential paper has guided billions of dollars US federal government research, according to Science.
The study examined the cognitive decline in mice, proposed that a specific amyloid protein may be responsible for cognitive decline.
Since then, the theory has dominated the field, and scientists have spent years trying to figure out how these proteins may cause the decline.
The issue is whether images in various papers were manipulated to better support a hypothesis, as researchers had difficulty replicating the results.
The work of researcher Sylvain Lesné, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, is now under investigation by the university.
Alzheimer's disease is the most prevalent cause of dementia worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
Over 6 million Americans are believed to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's, according to the National Institute on Aging.
Over 850,000 people in the UK suffer from dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Society.
