A meta-analysis of Planarian: an animal model useful to understand the effect of magnetic field Planarian and magnetic field researches

Abstract

Summary statementThis work presents a meta-analysis which allows consolidating information and a better understanding of trends in Planarian researches, emphasizing in the use of magnetic field. AbstractThe planarians research since the first description until nowadays has a broad spectrum of topics. The present paper deals on a meta-analysis which identified as a problem the lack of consolidate information and data analysis about the use of planarian as animal model, and specifically the use of magnetic field in regeneration experiments. To conduct the meta-analysis 1255 papers published since 1955 to 2017 were analysed, identifying the Stem cell biology and regeneration as the most published topic, with 276 papers, followed by molecular and cellular analyses (238), genetics (175), inter and transdisciplinary research (107), ecotoxicological evaluations (102), animal model (67), ecological and biological studies (56), magnetic field (57), developmental biology (32) and RNA regulation (31).Other statistics and metrics indicators were taken in to account like total of papers and distribution per year, distribution of paper by journals and selection of main journals according to the number of published papers, most cited papers, authors and countries and distribution of papers by countries. Finally, were analysed those papers with Planarians research using magnetic field, all of them published during the last three years.It was an evidence that this topic is becoming a trending with rising interest, being the most reported species to study the magnetic field effects Dugesia spp. and Girardia sp.