Global trends and hotspots in research on acupuncture for stroke: a bibliometric and visualization analysis.

Acupuncture has been widely used in stroke and post-stroke rehabilitation (PSR), but there is no literature on the bibliometric analysis of acupuncture for stroke. This study aimed to characterize the global publications and analyze the trends of acupuncture for stroke in the past 40 years. We identified 1157 publications from the Web of Science Core Collection. The number of publications grew slowly in the first three decades from 1980 until it started to grow after 2010, with significant growth in 2011–2012 and 2019–2020. China, the USA, and South Korea are the top three countries in this field, and China has formed good internal cooperative relations. Early studies focused on the clinical efficacy of acupuncture for stroke. In the last five years, more emphasis has been placed on the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating sequelae and complications, combined with neuroimaging studies to explore the mechanisms of brain injury repair and neurological recovery. Acupuncture for stroke has a vast research potential, and researchers from different countries/regions and organizations still need to remove academic barriers to enhance communication and collaboration. Highlights: For the first time, we analyzed hotspots related to the field of acupuncture for stroke research using a bibliometric approach, focusing on the most critical indicators, including researchers, countries, research institutions, and journals. 1157 publications from 60 countries/regions contributed to this research theme. China is the main producer of acupuncture for stroke and has formed a cooperation cluster. It is worth noting that researchers from different countries/regions and organizations still need to remove academic barriers to enhance communication and collaboration. Future research trends are focused on providing high-quality clinical evidence, integrating neurological disciplines, exploring new models with multidisciplinary overlap, and exploring the development of artificially intelligent acupuncture robots. The integration of acupuncture with neuroscience and computational science, as well as deep learning and artificial intelligence, are hotspots in acupuncture for stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]