SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neurorehabilitation
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1615659
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Regeneration and Intervention of Neurological Tissue after Acute and Chronic Injuries: from Benchside to BedsideView all articles
Global research hotspots and trends of acupuncture regulating neuroplasticity: A bibliometric analysis from 2005 to 2024
Provisionally accepted
- 1Affiliated Hospital of Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, China
- 2Clinical College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, lanzhou, China
- 3The First Affiliated Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, tianjin, China
- 4Department of Rheumatology and Osteopathy, Gansu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, lanzhou, China
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Background: Acupuncture has been widely used to relieve or cure various diseases. In this study, bibliometrics was used to comprehensively analyze the research focus and development trend of acupuncture regulating neuroplasticity, to provide new insights for future research. Method: In this study, the Science Citation Index-Expanded database in the Web of Science Core Collection was used to retrieve and download the publications about acupuncture regulating neuroplasticity from 2005 to 2024. CiteSpace, VOSviewer, "Bibliometric" software package and Microsoft Excel were used for bibliometric analysis, and the number of publications, countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, references and keywords were analyzed. Results: A total of 264 publications, involving 905 institutions in 100 countries/regions. Overall, the publishing volume in the past 20 years has shown a steady upward trend. China has become the leading force in this research field, contributing the most high-quality publications. Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine and Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine stand out as the most prolific institutions. Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and Harvard University have high academic influence. Among 1586 authors, CZ Liu, XY Hua and JG Xu were identified as the most prolific authors. Frontiers in Neuroscience is the most published journal. In recent years, the mechanisms of acupuncture have attracted wide attention and become a hot topic. Conclusion: With the increasing research in this field, cooperation between different countries/regions, institutions and authors should be strengthened. AMPK, BDNF, brain-gut axis and brain-immune axis are the research hotspots and frontiers in this field. In the future, with the improvement of technical level, we should deepen the mechanism research, optimize clinical research and promote the standardization and individualization of acupuncture technology, which is expected to further reveal the scientific connotation of acupuncture regulation plasticity.
Keywords: Acupuncture, neuroplasticity, Bibliometrics, visualization, hotspot, Trends
Received: 21 Apr 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Wen, qin, Zhang, zhu 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: fengfan Zhang, Department of Rheumatology and Osteopathy, Gansu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, lanzhou, China
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