Global Publications on Covid-19 and Neurosciences: A Bibliometric Assessment during 2020-21

Background: Covid-19 is a significant global health burden. The pulmonary morbidity and mortality of Covid-19 is well described, however, there is mounting evidence of neurological manifestations of SARS-CoV-2, which may be of paramount significance. This paper provides a bibliometric assessment of global literature of the peripheral and central neurological manifestations of Covid-19, using bibliometric methods. Methods: The study downloaded publications on this topic from the Scopus database using a well-defined research strategy. The search strategy was initially based on using different keywords related to Covid-19 in “Keyword” and “Title” search tags of Scopus database. The search was subsequently restricted to “Neurosciences” subject, yielding 5245 global records. Results: The 5245 global publications were published on ‘Covid-19 and Neurosciences” as covered in Scopus database and they have received 5245 citations, averaging 13.46 citations per paper. Of these 5245 publications, 24.54% (1287) received external funding support from 150+ agencies and averaged 20.17 citations per paper. 160 countries participated in global research on this topic, with USA, U.K. and Italy contributing the largest publication share (26.43%, 12.14% and 10.51%) and China (23.8 and 1.78), Spain (9.13 and 0.68) and Italy (8.56 and 0.64) registering the highest citation impact, based on citations per paper and relative citation index. “Adults”, among population age groups, contributed the largest share (30.31%), followed by “Aged” (9.48%), “Middle Aged” (9.02%), “Children”(4,73%) and “Adolescents” (2.71%). “Stroke”, “Multiple Sclerosis” and “Headache” among type of neurological diseases impacted by Covid-19, contributed the largest global publication share (6.31%, 6.22% and 6.06%), followed by “Seizure”, “Parkinson’s Disease”, Cerebrovascular Accident”, “Anosmia”, “Guillain-Barre Syndrome” and “Epilepsy” (from 4.39% to 5.62%), etc. “Clinical Studies”, among various types of research, contributed the largest publication share (29.38%) in total output impacted by Covid-19, followed by “Complications” (16.03%), “Treatment” (13.99%), “Pathophysiology” (12.18), “Risk Factors”(10.79%), “Epidemiology” (9.38%) and “Genetics”. Among participating organizations, Harvard Medical School, USA, University of Toronto, Canada and INSERM, France contributed the largest output (with 142, 101 and 99 papers) and University of Cambridge, U.K. (72.97 and 5.46), King’s College London, U.K. (49.97 and 3.74), University College London, U.K. (47.58 and 3.56) registered the largest citation impact. Among participating authors, J. Sterer (24 papers), F.A. Scorza (20 papers) and E. Moro (14 papers) contributed the largest number of papers and Z. Liu (169.7 and 12.7), M.L.R. Neto (54.92 and 4.11) and G. Tsivgoulis (45.54 and 3.41) registered the highest citation impact. Among journals participating on this theme, Psychiatry Research (311 papers), The Lancet Psychiatry (175 papers) and Frontiers in Neurology (172 papers) contributed the largest number of papers and Brain, Behavior and Immunity (61.35), The Lancet Psychiatry (54.58) and Nature Human Behavior (44.37) registered the largest citation impact per paper. Conclusion: This paper evaluates the rapidly evolving literature on the neurological manifestations of Covid-19, which will help to inform and improve decision-making among physicians treating Covid-19 and scholars conducting research on this area. It will also aid in the recognition of significant extra-pulmonary manifestations of the disease among attending front-line clinicians and consulting neurologists and also help them in understanding the pandemic’s broader impact on chronic disease management.