Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to Treat Neuropathic Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis

Neuropathic pain is caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory system and is one of the most incapacitating pain types, representing a significant non met medical need. Due to the increase in research in the field and since innovative therapeutic strategies are required, namely in intractable neuropathic pain, neurostimulation has been used. Within this approaches, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that uses a transient magnetic field to produce electrical currents over the cortex emerges in the literature. Since this is an area in expansion and due to the putative role of TMS, we performed a bibliometric analysis in Scopus with the primary objective of identify the scientific production related to the use of TMS to manage neuropathic pain. The research had no restrictions and the analysis focused on the characteristics of the literature retrieved, scientific collaboration and main research topics from inception to July 6, 2023. A total of 474 articles were collected. A biggest co-occurrence between the terms “neuropathic pain” and “transcranial magnetic stimulation” was obtained. The journal “Clinical Neurophysiology” leads the Top 5 most productive sources. The United States is the most productive country with 50% of the documents being “review articles” followed by France with 56% of the documents being “original articles”. Lefaucheur, JP and Saitoh, Y are the two most influents authors. The most frequent type of documents was “original article”. This study allows to perform a general overview in the field of TMS application for neuropathic pain and is useful to establish future directions of research in this field.