Bibliometric Analysis of Published Literature Utilizing Optogenetics as a Technique in Neuroscience: 2010–2020

The optogenetics technique where in light is used to excite or inhibit neurons has uncovered many new brain neuronal circuits causal in or associated with routine day-to-day physiological functioning as well as complex emotions/behaviors. The optogenetics technique due to its virtue of high spatial and temporal specificity, has uncovered neural correlates of organism functioning and behavior at a cellular/sub-cellular resolution, something not possible before in Neuroscience. Using the SciVerse Scopus database, we analyzed neuroscience based published literature (i.e., articles and reviews) utilizing Optogenetics as an investigative tool between years 2010 to 2020. 6568 published documents were refined to 2621 documents after using the appropriate filters in Scopus. The average retrieved document count per year was 262, with an over all h-index at 128. Karl Deisseroth and Edward S. Boyden were the two leading authors in the neuroscience optogenetics domain. The highly used author keywords in optogenetics were pertaining to in vivo models used, cell types and brain regions studied, etc. Top-cited documents in optogenetics were focused on optogenetics as a versatile developing tool, and its applicability as an investigative tool in diverse neuroscience domains. Thus, the increasing volume of published literature utilizing optogenetics signifies its enormous contribution as a discovery-based tool.