Research Hotspots and Global Trends of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Stroke: A Bibliometric Analysis

Transcranial direct current stimulation has been widely used in the clinical treatment of stroke. The purpose of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of scientific literature in this field.

Articles and reviews regarding transcranial direct current stimulation in stroke from January 01, 2004 to May 31, 2022 were identified from the Science Citation Index-Expanded of the Web of Science Core Collection database. CiteSpace 6.1.R2, Bibliometrix and the Bibliometric Online Analysis Platform were used to analyze data.

A total of 905 papers were obtained, with the highest number of publications coming from the USA. The institutions and authors with the most publications were Harvard Medical School and Fregni F respectively. Nitsche MA had the most co-citations, followed by Fregni F. Neurosciences was the most fruitful research area and Brain Stimulation had the highest H-index. The research topics could be divided into three sections: mechanisms of treatment, comparison of efficacy with transcranial magnetic stimulation, clinical application of post-stroke dysfunction. The field of "walking", "strength" and "virtual reality therapy" are the future research hotspots of transcranial direct current stimulation.

The overall research showed a slow growth trend, and the outstanding contribution of the USA in this field cannot be ignored. Relevant researchers are suggested to focus on international collaboration and actively conduct high-quality randomized controlled clinical trials on research hotspots and frontiers in order to identify the optimal stimulation paradigm for clinical purposes.