Scientific Research on the Pineal Gland: a Bibliometric Analysis From Its First Publication

Abstract

Objective: The bibliometric perspective examines publications using a quantitative way and statistics to analyze them. The purpose of the current study was to perform a comprehensive overview of the research on the pineal gland through bibliometric methods to determine the trends and rare topics related to the gland. Methods: The Web of Science database was used to identify the publications associated with the gland. The literature review exposed a total of 8719 publications. The identified publications were analyzed using the bibliometric approaches (VOSviewer Version 1.6.13). Results: The first studies on the pineal gland were in the 1970s. The most prolific country is the United States (2451). It was seen that most of the articles were published in Journal of Pineal Research. The majority of publications (97.09%) were written in English. The most prolific author is Reiter, Russel J. Moreover, the most prolific institute is the Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique (France). The most popular keywords in the articles were pineal gland, melatonin, circadian rhythm, rat, retina, photoperiod, circadian, aging, serotonin, oxidative stress, and brain. Conclusion: The results indicated the researchers’ interest in the gland and provided quantitative data about the place of the gland in the scientific area. Studies on this subject have tended to increase in recent years. As far as we know, this research is the first bibliometric study to provide a comprehensive analysis of scientific publications with an emphasis on the pineal gland since 1976.