A bibliometric analysis of the glymphatic system in cognition from 2009 to 2023

Abstract Background: Since the discovery of the glymphatic system in mice with clearance functions distributed throughout the brain, more and more scholars have begun to study the glymphatic system. However, there are a limited number of correlations between glymphatic system and cognition. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the research trends, hotspots, and frontiers of glymphatic system in cognition using bibliometric analysis. Methods: Publications from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database spanning 15 years from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2023 were screened. All eligible publication were included based on our comprehensive search strategy. The analysis of annual publications, countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors, co-cited journals, co-cited authors, and keywords was conducted using CiteSpace and VOSviewer, and the hotspots and major findings of the glymphatic system in cognition were summarised. In addition, ArcGIS software was used to geovisualize the count of publications. Results: A total of 625 publications were included in this study. Overall, the number of publications has been increasing steadily per year. These publications were published in 59 countries/regions and 149 institutions. Of these, American institutions had the highest number of publications, and their international influence also ranked first. The journal “Neurology” published the most publications and was considered the most co-cited journal. Wardlaw, Joanna M was the author of the most published articles and the most cited authors. The article entitled “The glymphatic pathway in neurological disorders” published in Lancet neurology had the most citations. The keywords with the highest number of occurrences were “Alzheimer disease” and “small vessel disease”, which were regarded as research hotspots. Three main clusters were shown in the keywords clustering network. Alzheimer's disease and perivascular spaces had been a hot topic for a long time and from 2017 research on GS increased. Among 19 emergent terms, “Virchow robin spaces”, “vascular dementia”, and “autosomal dominant arteriopathy” were the first, and “white matter lesions” were the strongest. Conclusion: Previous research has focused mainly on perivascular spaces, however, with the concept of the glymphatic system was introduced, the correlation of the glymphatic system in cognition have gradually increased. Currently, limited studies have been conducted on the glymphatic system in cognition , and we hope that this study will provide the recommendation for the future research.