Volume 30, Issue 1, 2021
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.2035
A Holistic Evaluation of Articles on Neurofeedback Published Between 1975 and 2020: A Bibliometric Analysis
Abstract
Objective: This study was conducted to provide a holistic view on neurofeedback publications globally and to examine the changes in the characteristics of neurofeedback-related studies through a bibliometric analysis focusing on the period between 1975 and 2020.
Material and methods: All data were obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The term “Neurofeedback†was used as a keyword to search the WoS database. The VOSviewer was used to procure scientometric network visualizations of specific results.
Results: A total of 1480 publications were included, 53.91% of them original articles. The USA dominated the literature with 388 publications followed by Germany and United Kingdom (17.1% and 10%, respectively). Germany was the most productive country with a productivity score of 30.63 followed by USA, Switzerland, Netherlands and Iran (s= 11.87, 10.97, 6.76, 6.72, respectively). The top research fields of these publications were neurosciences and neurology, psychiatry, and engineering. The University of London was revealed as the institution with the most contributions in this field, and the top two authors with the most publications were Sterhl U and Wood G. The Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback journal was the foremost journal that published the highest number of articles (n=53, 35.8%). The top cited article was “Efficacy of neurofeedback treatment in ADHD: the effects on inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity: a meta-analysis†by Arns, M et al. published in 2009. This is the first study to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the neurofeedback literature. The number of publications during this period showed a significant increase annually. All researchers ranking among the top 10 authors were from developed countries.
Conclusion: Scientometric analysis revealed that Germany, USA, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Canada were closely connected by global bibliometric relationships. Among developing countries, Iran had significantly high contributions to the literature on neurofeedback.
Keywords
neurofeedback; bibliometric analysis; scientometrics; publications