Emerging trends and focus of research on the relationship between traumatic brain injury and gut microbiota: a visualized study

Abstract

BackgroundTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most serious types of trauma and imposes a heavy social and economic burden on healthcare systems worldwide. The development of emerging biotechnologies is uncovering the relationship between TBI and gut flora, and gut flora as a potential intervention target is of increasing interest to researchers. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research employing bibliometric methodologies to scrutinize the interrelation between these two. Therefore, this study visualized the relationship between TBI and gut flora based on bibliometric methods to reveal research trends and hotspots in the field. The ultimate objective is to catalyze progress in the preclinical and clinical evolution of strategies for treating and managing TBI.MethodsTerms related to TBI and gut microbiota were combined to search the Scopus database for relevant documents from inception to February 2023. Visual analysis was performed using CiteSpace and VOSviewer.ResultsFrom September 1972 to February 2023, 2,957 documents published from 98 countries or regions were analyzed. The number of published studies on the relationship between TBI and gut flora has risen exponentially, with the United States, China, and the United Kingdom being representative of countries publishing in related fields. Research has formed strong collaborations around highly productive authors, but there is a relative lack of international cooperation. Research in this area is mainly published in high-impact journals in the field of neurology. The “intestinal microbiota and its metabolites,” “interventions,” “mechanism of action” and “other diseases associated with traumatic brain injury” are the most promising and valuable research sites. Targeting the gut flora to elucidate the mechanisms for the development of the course of TBI and to develop precisely targeted interventions and clinical management of TBI comorbidities are of great significant research direction and of interest to researchers.ConclusionThe findings suggest that close attention should be paid to the relationship between gut microbiota and TBI, especially the interaction, potential mechanisms, development of emerging interventions, and treatment of TBI comorbidities. Further investigation is needed to understand the causal relationship between gut flora and TBI and its specific mechanisms, especially the “brain-gut microbial axis.”

Mapping knowledge landscapes and research frontiers of gastrointestinal microbiota and bone metabolism: a text-mining study

“…Genomic sequencing of gut microbiota unveils their diversity, abundance, and functional potential, while metabolomics enables scholars to explore the composition and variations of various metabolites within organisms, thereby elucidating the impact of microbiota on host metabolism and the host’s regulation of microbial metabolism ( Lau et al., 2023 ). Previous bibliometric analyses have demonstrated similar trends in research on gut microbiota in areas such as cancer ( Zyoud et al., 2022 ; Wu et al., 2023 ), inflammatory diseases ( Liu et al., 2023 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ), immune system disorders ( Ni et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ), and traumatic injuries ( Du et al., 2023 ; Huang et al., 2023 ). It is conceivable that with ongoing breakthroughs in omics technologies, our understanding of the relationship and mechanisms between gut microbiota and bone metabolism will be further enhanced, consequently leading to a continued increase in publications within this field in the foreseeable future.…”

“…In this study, literature retrieval was conducted using the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), a subset of the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), renowned as one of the foremost databases in the biomedical field ( Wu et al., 2021a ; Aguilar Ramírez et al., 2022 ; Ni et al., 2022 ; Temel et al., 2022 ; Zyoud et al., 2022 ; Du et al., 2023 ; Huang et al., 2023 ; Liu et al., 2023 ; Montazeri et al., 2023 ; Wang et al., 2023 ; Wu et al., 2023 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ; Babar et al., 2024 ; Cheng et al., 2024 ). The database, widely employed in bibliometric studies across disciplines, was accessed on March 3, 2024, with a search spanning a single day.…”

“…In recent years, owing to the explosive growth of biomedical literature and the continuous development of various free bibliometric tools such as CiteSpace and VOSviewer software, bibliometric studies have garnered increasing attention in the biomedical domain ( Aguilar Ramírez et al., 2022 ; Montazeri et al., 2023 ; Cheng et al., 2024 ). Taking the gut microbiota as an example, previous bibliometric studies have analyzed the relationship between gut microbiota and tumors ( Zyoud et al., 2022 ; Wu et al., 2023 ), inflammatory diseases ( Liu et al., 2023 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ), immune system disorders ( Ni et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ), as well as traumatic diseases ( Du et al., 2023 ; Huang et al., 2023 ). In the field of bone metabolism, several bibliometric analyses have investigated advancements and hotspots in research areas such as osteoporosis ( Wu et al., 2021a ; Temel et al., 2022 ), osteoarthritis ( Yang et al., 2022 ; Xiong et al., 2024 ), and rheumatoid arthritis ( Zhong et al., 2021 ; Radu et al., 2022 ), mapping the overall knowledge structure and citation networks of these fields.…”