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Review
. 2020 Dec 31;11(1):33.
doi: 10.3390/brainsci11010033.

A Bibliometric Insight of Genetic Factors in ASD: Emerging Trends and New Developments

Kang Wang  1 , Weicheng Duan  1 , Yijie Duan  1 , Yuxin Yu  2 , Xiuyi Chen  3 , Yinhui Xu  2 , Haihong Chen  4 , Hongzhi Huang  1 , Bo Xiong  1
Affiliations
Review

A Bibliometric Insight of Genetic Factors in ASD: Emerging Trends and New Developments

Kang Wang et al. Brain Sci. .

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases have increased rapidly in recent decades, which is associated with various genetic abnormalities. To provide a better understanding of the genetic factors in ASD, we assessed the global scientific output of the related studies. A total of 2944 studies published between 1997 and 2018 were included by systematic retrieval from the Web of Science (WoS) database, whose scientific landscapes were drawn and the tendencies and research frontiers were explored through bibliometric methods. The United States has been acting as a leading explorer of the field worldwide in recent years. The rapid development of high-throughput technologies and bioinformatics transferred the research method from the traditional classic method to a big data-based pipeline. As a consequence, the focused research area and tendency were also changed, as the contribution of de novo mutations in ASD has been a research hotspot in the past several years and probably will remain one into the near future, which is consistent with the current opinions of the major etiology of ASD. Therefore, more attention and financial support should be paid to the deciphering of the de novo mutations in ASD. Meanwhile, the effective cooperation of multi-research centers and scientists in different fields should be advocated in the next step of scientific research undertaken.

Keywords: ASD; bibliometric; genetics; quantitative analysis; research frontiers.

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Conflict of interest statement

All the authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The flow chart of the methodology.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Accumulated number and annual number of genetic factors in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) publications from 1997 to 2018.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cooperation between contributed countries.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Geographical distribution of genetic factors in ASD publications.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Co-cited references timeline map based on CiteSpace. Co-cited references that are commonly cited in the literature of genetic factors in ASD are clustered and identified by CiteSpace. Nodes on the map represent referenced documents. The shift of research concerns was reflected by the trend of co-cited literature subjects. Years are arranged horizontally at the top, and the label of each cluster is shown at the end of the cluster’s timeline.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Co-occurrence network of terms of genetic factors in ASD publications from 1997 to 2018. The most common terms used in the scientific literature were investigated to identify relationships between the extracted terms and new aspects and the applied technologies. Terms were automatically exacted from titles and abstracts and divided into four clusters by the natural language processing techniques of VOSviewer.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Top 30 keywords with the strongest citation bursts. Keywords with the strongest citation bursts in the scientific literature were analyzed and visualized in the keyword’s burst map. Each short line represents a year, and a line in red stands for the burst detection years. Keywords with red lines extending to the latest year can indicate the research frontiers a short period of time in the future.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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