Autism spectrum disorder research: knowledge mapping of progress and focus between 2011 and 2022

Abstract

Background: In recent years, a large number of studies have focused on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study used bibliometric analysis to describe the state of ASD research over the past decade and identify its trends and research fronts.

Methods: Studies on ASD published from 2011 to 2022 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Bibliometrix, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer were used for bibliometric analysis.

Results: A total of 57,108 studies were included in the systematic search, and articles were published in more than 6,000 journals. The number of publications increased by 181.7% (2,623 in 2011 and 7,390 in 2021). The articles in the field of genetics are widely cited in immunology, clinical research, and psychological research. Keywords co-occurrence analysis revealed that "causative mechanisms," "clinical features," and "intervention features" were the three main clusters of ASD research. Over the past decade, genetic variants associated with ASD have gained increasing attention, and immune dysbiosis and gut microbiota are the new development frontiers after 2015.

Conclusion: This study uses a bibliometric approach to visualize and quantitatively describe autism research over the last decade. Neuroscience, genetics, brain imaging studies, and gut microbiome studies improve our understanding of autism. In addition, the microbe-gut-brain axis may be an exciting research direction for ASD in the future. Therefore, through visual analysis of autism literature, this paper shows the development process, research hotspots, and cutting-edge trends in this field to provide theoretical reference for the development of autism in the future.

Keywords: CiteSpace; VOSviewer; autism spectrum disorder; bibliometric study; research frontiers.

Figure 1

Flowchart of the screening process.

Figure 2

Global trends in publications of ASD research. (A) Single-year publication output over the past decade. (B) Model forecast curves for publication growth trends.

Figure 3

The distribution of countries and institutions. Map of countries (A) and institutions (B) contributed to publications related to ASD research. (C) Network diagram showing international collaborations involved in ASD research. The nodes represent the countries and institutions; the color depth and size of the circle are positively correlated to the number of posts. The thickness of the curved connecting lines represents the strength of collaboration in the countries and institutions.

Figure 4

A dual-map overlay of journals that published work related to ASD. A presentation of citation paths at a disciplinary level on a dual-map overlay. The width of the paths is proportional to the z-score-scale citation frequency. The labels on the map represent the research subjects covered by the journals, and the wavy curve connects the citing articles on the left side of the map and the cited articles on the right side of the map.

Figure 5

Mapping on co-cited references. (A) A network map showing the co-cited references. (B) Co-cited clusters with cluster labels.

Figure 6

Keywords co-occurrence network. (A) Cluster analysis of keywords. There are four clusters of keywords: red indicates Cluster 1 (n = 145), green indicates Cluster 2 (n = 104), blue indicates Cluster 3 (n = 78), yellow indicates Cluster 4 (n = 80). (B) Evolution of keyword frequency. A minimum number of occurrences of a keyword = 200. Overall, 407 keywords met the threshold criteria. The yellow keywords appear later than purple keywords.

Figure 7

Analysis of the 100 top-cited publications Characteristics of 100 top-cited publications. The most relevant countries (A), affiliations (B), journals (C) and authors (D). Trend topics (E) and thematic evolution (F) of 100 top-cited publication. Coupling Map (G): the coupled analysis of the article, references and keywords is carried out, the centrality of the x-axis is displayed, the y-axis is the impact, and the confidence (conf%) is calculated.