SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Epilepsy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1533268
A bibliometric analysis of synaptic plasticity and epilepsy from 2003 to 2023
Provisionally accepted
- First Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China
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Background and purpose: Epilepsy is a prevalent and chronic neurological disorder. Recent studies suggest that synaptic plasticity could be a promising therapeutic target for epilepsy. This research employed bibliometric techniques to assess the study trends of synaptic plasticity in epilepsy over the last twenty years, highlighting major areas of focus and new topics.Methods: Research articles on synaptic plasticity in epilepsy, spanning 2003 to 2023, were sourced from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. Tools including CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and various online bibliometric platforms were utilized to conduct a deeper analysis of the collected data.Results: From 2003 to 2023, a total of 1,060 publications related to synaptic plasticity in epilepsy were indexed, including 309 review articles. Over the past two decades, both the number of publications and their citations have increased. The United States emerged as the leading country in terms of the number of both review and original research articles published, highlighting its significant influence in this field. Among all authors, Fabio Benfenati was the most cited in review articles, while Xuefeng Wang was the most cited in original research articles. Over the past twenty years, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience published the highest number of review articles on synaptic plasticity in epilepsy, while The Journal of Neuroscience published the most original research articles on this topic.This research examined 1369 studies on synaptic plasticity in epilepsy and highlighted the prevailing trends in the field. The research findings indicate that the current focus of review studies is on gamma-aminobutyric acid, amyloid beta peptide, and glutamate receptors, while the focus of original research is on astrocytes, NMDA receptors, and long-term potentiation.
Keywords: Epilepsy, synaptic plasticity, bibliometric analysis, visualization, VOSviewer, Citespace
Received: 23 Nov 2024; Accepted: 26 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Sun, Chen, Meng and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Daguang Zhang, First Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.