A Holistic Investigation of Global Outputs of Covid-19 Publications in Neurology and Neurosurgery

Abstract

Objectives: Neurological and neurosurgical management of the global COVID-19 crisis could only be possible by extending the current literature and rapidly delivering this current data to clinicians. The purpose of this study is to analyze the global outputs of COVID-19 in the field of neuroscience through bibliometric methods and provide a guide to researchers who would like to contribute to the literature by conducting research in this field. Methods: Bibliometric analysis was performed for all the publications in Web of Science database in Neurosciences Neurology (Clinical Neurology, Neurosciences, Neuroimaging) research areas and included the “COVID-19”, “coronavirus”, “2019-nCoV”, “n-CoV”, and “SARS-CoV-2” keywords in their title. Results: The literature review included 13785 publications in all research areas. Of these publications, 459 were published in the field of Neurosciences Neurology. The top 5 countries that produced the highest number of publications were the USA (139, 30.2%), Italy (110, 23.9%), UK (57, 12.2%), China (49, 10.6%), and Germany (43, 9.3%). The journals that produced the highest number of publications were Brain Behavior and Immunity, Journal of Neurology, Neurological Sciences, Nature Human Behavior and Acta Neurochirurgica. The most commonly investigated topics were stroke, encephalitis, depression, mental health, stress, neurosurgery, Parkinson’s disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome, multiple sclerosis, anxiety, and headache. Conclusion: The present study has the potential to provide a guide that can contribute to the improvement in the literature.