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. 2022 Jun 21:16:887246.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.887246. eCollection 2022.

Research Hotspots and Effectiveness of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis

Chong Li  1 , Mingyu Sun  1 , Shiliu Tian  1   2   3   4
Affiliations

Research Hotspots and Effectiveness of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis

Chong Li et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation, as a relatively new type of treatment, is a safe and non-invasive method for pain therapy. Here, we used CiteSpace software to visually analyze 440 studies concerning transcranial magnetic stimulation in pain research from 2010 to 2021, indexed by Web of Science, to clarify the research hotspots in different periods and characterize the process of discovery in this field. The United States ranked first in this field. Lefaucheur JP, Fregni F, and Andrade ACD made great contributions to this field of study. The most prolific institution was University of São Paulo. The four main hot keywords were neuropathic pain, motor cortex, connectivity, and non-invasive brain stimulation. There were three main points that were generally accepted: (1) definite analgesic effect of high-frequency rTMS of M1 contralateral to pain side in neuropathic pain; (2) there are inconclusive recommendations regarding rTMS of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in fibromyalgia and neuropathic pain; (3) there is low-quality evidence that single doses of high-frequency rTMS of the motor cortex may have short-term effects on chronic pain. This bibliometric analysis indicated that prospective, multi-center, large-sample, randomized controlled trials are still needed to further verify the effectiveness of various transcranial magnetic stimulation parameters in pain research.

Keywords: CiteSpace; Web of Science; citation burst; pain; transcranial magnetic stimulation.

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Conflict of interest statement

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
Flow chart of studies inclusion.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Annual publication outputs and the model fitting curve of the time trend of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in pain research.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Top 25 cited journals with the strongest citation burst.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Top 10 most cited journals among 440 studies published from 2010 to 2021.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Visualization of dual-map overlays of citing journals and cited journals of 440 studies published from 2010 to 2021. The colored curve indicates the path of citation, which originates from 11 fields of the citing journals on the left and points to 14 fields of the cited journals on the right.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Timeline view of reference co-citation analysis.
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
Cluster of keywords from 440 inclusion studies. The keyword clusters (LLR algorithm) were divided into 11 categories (#0-10). Those without # are high-frequency keywords.
FIGURE 8
FIGURE 8
Top 18 keywords with the strongest citation bursts of the 440 included studies from 2010 to 2021.
FIGURE 9
FIGURE 9
Network map of countries and institutions in TMS in pain research.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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