Research on acupuncture and glial cells: A bibliometric analysis

There are a growing number of studies on the effect of acupuncture on glial cells in the central nervous system; however, there are few related bibliometric analyses in this area. Therefore, the purpose of this bibliometric study was to visualize the literature on acupuncture-regulated glial cells.

On November 23, 2022, regular and review articles on acupuncture and glial cell-related research were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The R package "bibliometrix" was used to summarize the main findings, count the occurrences of the top keywords, visualize the international collaboration network, and generate a 3-field plot. The VOSviewer software was used to conduct both co-authorship and co-occurrence analyses. CiteSpace was used to identify the best references and keywords with the highest citation rates.

Overall, 348 publications on acupuncture and glial cells were included. The publications were primarily from China, Korea, and the United States of America. The majority of publications were found in relevant journals. Apart from "acupuncture" and "glial cells," the most frequently used keywords were "neuroinflammation," "hyperalgesia," and "pain."

This bibliometric study mapped a fundamental knowledge structure comprising countries, institutions, authors, journals, and articles in the research fields of acupuncture and glial cells over the last 3 decades. These results provide a comprehensive perspective on the wider landscape of this research area.