BACKGROUND
Background: Depression is the most disabling and prevalent psychiatric disorder; transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is widely used in the treatment of depression because of its remarkable efficacy.
OBJECTIVE
Objective: To investigate the current status, hotspots and frontiers of this research field, and advance the research on TMS for treating depression, this paper provides a visualization and bibliometric analysis of studies related to TMS for depression.
METHODS
Methods: Literature related to TMS for depression was searched based on the Web of science core database from database creation to November 19, 2023. Cite Space 6.2.R4 and VOS viewer 1.6.20 were used to analyze the relevant literature in terms of annual publications, authors, institutions and international collaborations, co-cited literature, co-cited authors, co-cited journals, and keywords.
RESULTS
Results: A total of 4218 papers were included. The overall trend of the number of publications in this research area is increasing year by year. Research fervor is expected to continue to increase. The United States is in the top position both in terms of the number of publications and centrality. Although Canada ranks third in terms of the number of articles published, its centrality is not high. Based on the keyword co-occurrence analysis, the research hotspots in this field were clarified as efficacy, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, prefrontal cortex, motor cortex and so on. In recent years, the keywords that have burst out and have continued until now are the treatment effectiveness, reliability, frequency, and theta burst treatment modality of TMS. These keywords may become hot spots for future research.
CONCLUSIONS
Conclusion: Our findings suggested that studies related to the field of TMS depression are increasingly emphasized by researchers, and the United States is an international leader in this research area. In the future, cooperation between countries should be strengthened. Meanwhile, it is important to use various imaging-assisted localization tools to carry out multi-center and large-sample clinical studies of individualized treatment parameters for TMS.