Correction: Sophisticated use of upper limb haptic interactions during adaptive locomotion

Academic publishing standards require absolute precision not only in experimental methodology and data analysis, but also in the meticulous documentation of administrative requirements, institutional affiliations, and financial disclosures. On October 27, 2026, the journal Frontiers in Psychology issued an official correction notice regarding a previously published study in its Movement Science section. The notice, cataloged under Volume 17 for the year 2026, addresses a critical administrative omission in the funding statement of the original paper, titled Sophisticated use of upper limb haptic interactions during adaptive locomotion. Authored by Michael J. MacLellan, Yury Ivanenko, Pierpaolo Avaltroni, Francesco Lacquaniti, and Federico Sylos-Labini, the study explores the intricate biomechanical and neurological mechanisms governing human movement, physical contact, and adaptive coordination.

The primary catalyst for the published correction was the accidental omission of a specific grant identification code required by the primary funding bodies. While the omission did not impact the scientific findings, data integrity, or theoretical conclusions of the original research, academic transparency mandates that all financial backers receive proper attribution. Consequently, the authors and the journal’s editorial board acted to update the public record, ensuring full compliance with European Union and Italian national research funding guidelines.

Anatomy of the Administrative Omission

The core of the correction centers on the financial backing that enabled the research team to conduct their complex experiments in sensorimotor control and haptic communication. In the initial publication, the funding disclosure acknowledged support broadly but failed to include the exact tracking code necessary for institutional auditing. Specifically, the alphanumeric grant code CUP J83C22002060007 was left out of the formal funding statement.

To rectify this, the updated funding statement now reads in full: The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health and funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU – NRRPM6C2 – Investment 2.1 Enhancement and strengthening of biomedical research in the NHS, PNRR-POC-2022-12375705, CUP J83C22002060007.

By integrating this missing identifier, the administrative record now correctly traces the lineage of the financial grants back to their specific legislative and institutional sources. This ensures that both the Italian Ministry of Health and the broader European Union framework receive formal recognition for their investment in cutting-edge biomedical and movement science initiatives.

Background and Context of the Research

To fully understand the significance of the paper—and by extension, the necessity of maintaining accurate administrative records for it—one must examine the scope of the original study. The research conducted by MacLellan and his colleagues focuses heavily on sensorimotor control, haptic communication, interaction forces, quadrupedal coordination, and interactive locomotion. These fields sit at the intersection of neuroscience, kinesiology, and robotics, investigating how humans and animals physically interact with their environments and with one another through touch and dynamic force feedback.

Adaptive locomotion refers to the nervous system’s remarkable ability to modify walking, running, or crawling patterns in real-time response to unexpected obstacles, terrain changes, or physical interactions with other agents. Haptic communication—the transmission of information through touch and physical manipulation—plays a crucial role in this process. When individuals coordinate movements while holding hands, carrying an object together, or navigating complex physical spaces, their nervous systems continuously process interaction forces to maintain balance and synchronize trajectories.

The study by MacLellan et al. delves into how the upper limbs are sophisticatedly utilized during these adaptive tasks. Traditionally, biomechanical research has treated upper and lower limb coordination during locomotion as largely segregated systems, focusing primarily on bipedal gait stability. However, this research highlights how upper limb haptic interactions can fundamentally alter, stabilize, and guide locomotion, offering new insights into rehabilitation strategies, neurological motor control models, and human-robot collaborative frameworks.

Chronology of the Publication and Correction Process

The lifecycle of an academic manuscript involves numerous rigorous stages, ranging from initial submission and peer review to final typesetting, publication, and post-publication maintenance. While the exact submission and acceptance dates of the original article are tied to the journal’s internal tracking systems, the publication trajectory culminated in late 2026 with the identification of the missing grant data.

1. Research Execution and Funding Allocation: Prior to manuscript preparation, the research team secured financial support through Italian health initiatives tied to European Union Next Generation EU funds, specifically generating the tracking code CUP J83C22002060007.
2. Initial Manuscript Submission and Peer Review: The authors submitted their work on sensorimotor control and haptic communication to Frontiers in Psychology, where it underwent peer review by independent experts in movement science.
3. Publication: The original paper was published online, establishing its DOI and entering the permanent scientific literature. However, during the final formatting stages, the specific CUP grant code was inadvertently dropped from the funding acknowledgment.
4. Identification and Rectification: Following publication, routine compliance checks by the authors or institutional grant managers flagged the absence of the required alphanumeric code. The authors promptly requested a formal erratum from the publisher.
5. Issuance of the Correction: On October 27, 2026, Frontiers in Psychology officially published the correction notice, updating the digital record and linking the erratum directly to the original article via its DOI metadata.

The Role of Funding Transparency in Modern Science

The issuance of a formal correction for a missing grant code, rather than an error in data or methodology, underscores a broader cultural shift in modern scientific publishing. In recent years, funding agencies, national governments, and international bodies have placed unprecedented emphasis on accountability, open science, and transparent attribution.

When researchers receive public funds—such as those distributed through the European Union’s Next Generation EU recovery instrument and the Italian Ministry of Health—they operate under strict legal and ethical obligations to acknowledge those sources accurately. These grants are not merely financial transactions; they represent public trust, taxpayer investments, and strategic political commitments to advancing human knowledge. Consequently, funding codes act as audit trails. They allow oversight bodies to track the productivity, impact, and return on investment of specific national and international health initiatives.

Failure to include these codes, even if entirely accidental, can disrupt institutional reporting mechanisms and complicate the administrative evaluation of research output. Therefore, academic journals maintain rigorous protocols for issuing corrections, ensuring that the scientific record remains permanently aligned with legal and financial realities.

Institutional Perspectives and Publisher Protocols

In academic publishing, corrections, errata, and retractions serve as vital self-correcting mechanisms. The publisher of the study, Frontiers, adheres to strict editorial guidelines regarding alterations to the published record. When an administrative error of this nature occurs, the standard procedure involves publishing a standalone correction article that is permanently cross-linked with the original research paper.

Furthermore, the publisher includes explicit standard disclaimers to delineate responsibility between authors, editors, and affiliated institutions. The publisher’s note accompanying the correction explicitly states that all claims expressed in the article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, the publisher, the editors, or the reviewers. Similarly, any products or manufacturers evaluated within the study carry no implicit endorsement from the publishing house. This legal and ethical demarcation protects all parties while ensuring that the scientific discourse remains independent and transparent.

Broader Implications for Movement Science and Interdisciplinary Research

While the October 27 correction notice is fundamentally an administrative update, it brings renewed visibility to a growing field of study. Research into haptic communication and interactive locomotion carries profound implications across multiple technological and medical domains.

As society moves toward a future characterized by advanced human-robot collaboration, understanding how humans use upper limb interactions to guide movement is essential. Industrial exoskeletons, rehabilitation robotics for stroke survivors, and assistive devices for individuals with motor impairments all rely on sophisticated algorithms that mimic or enhance natural sensorimotor control. If a robotic prosthetic limb or an industrial robotic assistant can accurately interpret and respond to human haptic cues, the fluency and safety of collaborative tasks increase exponentially.

Moreover, insights into quadrupedal coordination and human adaptive locomotion shed light on evolutionary biomechanics and neurorehabilitation. By mapping how the central nervous system integrates force feedback from the upper limbs during dynamic tasks, clinicians can design more effective physical therapy regimens for patients recovering from neurological trauma or spinal cord injuries.

Conclusion

The publication of the correction notice for Sophisticated use of upper limb haptic interactions during adaptive locomotion demonstrates the unwavering commitment of researchers and publishers to absolute accuracy in the scientific record. Though minor in scale—consisting solely of the addition of grant code CUP J83C22002060007—the correction ensures that the Italian Ministry of Health and the European Union’s Next Generation EU initiative receive proper accreditation for their vital financial backing. As MacLellan, Ivanenko, Avaltroni, Lacquaniti, and Sylos-Labini continue their pioneering work in movement science, this updated record guarantees that the institutional foundations supporting their research remain as robust and transparent as their scientific findings.