Publication trends in transcranial magnetic stimulation: a 30-year panorama

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive neuromodulatory technique that has broad diagnostic and therapeutic potential across a range of neurological and psychiatric diseases.

This study utilises a bibliometric approach to systematically and comprehensively evaluate the literature on TMS from the last three decades.

The Scopus citation database was used to identify all peer-reviewed journal articles concerning TMS over the period 1988-2017. Frequency-distribution, cross-tabulation and keyword analyses were performed to determine the most prolific researchers, institutions, nations, journals and the foremost studied disease entities within the TMS field. Given recent heightened awareness of gender bias across many fields of biomedicine, female representation among the most prolific authors was determined. Open-access publication rates and types of study design utilised were also quantified.

17,492 TMS-related articles were published during the study period 1988-2017. The annual TMS research output has increased dramatically over this time, despite a recent levelling-off of publications per year. The most prolific institutions were based in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. The top disease entities studied were stroke, depression and Parkinson's disease. Only 4/52 of the most productive researchers during the study period were female. A minority (4.81%) of publications were published as gold open-access.

This study implemented a systematic, bibliometric approach to quantitively assess the breadth of the TMS literature base and identify temporal publication and authorship trends. Drawing on these insights may aid understanding of historical progress in TMS over the last 30 years and help identify into unmet needs and opportunities to improve scientific and publishing practices to contribute to the future health of the field. These findings are likely to be relevant to researchers, clinicians, funders, industry collaborators and other stakeholders.