TY - JOUR
T1 - Brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders
T2 - A perspective from bibliometric and visual analysis
AU - Chen, Pan
AU - Zhang, Ling
AU - Feng, Yuan
AU - Liu, Yu Fei
AU - Si, Tong Leong
AU - Su, Zhaohui
AU - Cheung, Teris
AU - Ungvari, Gabor S.
AU - Ng, Chee H.
AU - Xiang, Yu Tao
N1 - Funding Information:
With the initiative of the Microbiome Project (, ), research outputs on the brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders have been published in multiple countries, with China being the most productive country, followed by the USA and Ireland. This finding is not completely consistent with the overall research on the brain-gut axis as a field, which showed that the USA contributed the most publications, followed by Ireland and China (). This may indicate that China has substantially increased research activities related to the brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders. Adequate research funding is required to achieve large scientific research outputs. In this study, except for China, all others in the top 10 productive countries are in the high-income level. As an upper-middle income level country, China has invested huge financial support in microbiology research with the launch of the Microbiome Initiative (CMI) by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017, including incremental funding for the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the “973” program, the “863” program and the special projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (). Liu et al. reported that China’s research and development expenditure in the field of microbiology is now almost 400 million yuan (approx. USD 57.8 million) per year (). Publications from Ireland had the most significant impact, which may be due to the fact that the most active authors came from Ireland (, ), specifically from the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC) of University College Cork, with funds by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and several collaborative companies ().
Funding Information:
The study was supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project for investigational new drug (2018ZX09201-014), the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (No. Z181100001518005), and the University of Macau (MYRG2019-00066-FHS; MYRG2022-00187-FHS).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Chen, Zhang, Feng, Liu, Si, Su, Cheung, Ungvari, Ng and Xiang.
PY - 2022/11/16
Y1 - 2022/11/16
N2 - Background: The Brain-Gut Axis, a bidirectional signaling pathway that connects the intestinal and central nervous systems, plays an important role in the development of psychiatric disorders. However, the overall research trends in this field are unclear. This study explored the patterns of research on the brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders from a bibliometric perspective. Methods: Relevant data were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, with search terms on psychiatric disorders and the brain-gut axis. R (version 4.2.0), VOSviewer (version 1.6.17), CiteSpace software, and the online bibliometric platform were used in the data analysis. Results: A total of 2,298 articles published between 1993 and 2022 were identified, showing an increasing trend over time. China (1,859; 20.70%) was the country that contributed the most publications. The journal Nutrients (95; 4.13%) published the most publications. Cryan JF (153; H-index=73) and University College Cork (559; 22.54%) were the most influential author and the most productive institution, respectively. The high-frequency keywords were clustered into six themes, including neurodegenerative diseases, stress-related diseases, immune, brain behavior, depression, and probiotic-related topics; of which, depression (880; 2019), anxiety (207; 2018) and autism (191; 2019) were the most studied psychiatric disorders in the past 5 years. “Depressive symptom” (2019-2020) and “probiotic treatment” (2019-2020) were the main areas addressed in recent years. Conclusion: Research on the brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders has attracted increasing attention in the past decade, with most publications originating from high-income level countries. This study provides a useful perspective on understanding the research trends, key hot topics, and research gaps in this expanding field.
AB - Background: The Brain-Gut Axis, a bidirectional signaling pathway that connects the intestinal and central nervous systems, plays an important role in the development of psychiatric disorders. However, the overall research trends in this field are unclear. This study explored the patterns of research on the brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders from a bibliometric perspective. Methods: Relevant data were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, with search terms on psychiatric disorders and the brain-gut axis. R (version 4.2.0), VOSviewer (version 1.6.17), CiteSpace software, and the online bibliometric platform were used in the data analysis. Results: A total of 2,298 articles published between 1993 and 2022 were identified, showing an increasing trend over time. China (1,859; 20.70%) was the country that contributed the most publications. The journal Nutrients (95; 4.13%) published the most publications. Cryan JF (153; H-index=73) and University College Cork (559; 22.54%) were the most influential author and the most productive institution, respectively. The high-frequency keywords were clustered into six themes, including neurodegenerative diseases, stress-related diseases, immune, brain behavior, depression, and probiotic-related topics; of which, depression (880; 2019), anxiety (207; 2018) and autism (191; 2019) were the most studied psychiatric disorders in the past 5 years. “Depressive symptom” (2019-2020) and “probiotic treatment” (2019-2020) were the main areas addressed in recent years. Conclusion: Research on the brain-gut axis and psychiatric disorders has attracted increasing attention in the past decade, with most publications originating from high-income level countries. This study provides a useful perspective on understanding the research trends, key hot topics, and research gaps in this expanding field.
KW - bibliometric analysis
KW - brain-gut axis
KW - gut microbiota
KW - hotspots
KW - psychiatric disorders
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85143240285&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1047007
DO - 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1047007
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36466907
AN - SCOPUS:85143240285
SN - 1664-3224
VL - 13
JO - Frontiers in Immunology
JF - Frontiers in Immunology
M1 - 1047007
ER -