BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONAL NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY (FNIRS) IN NEUROIMAGING LITERATURE

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2023-9-11
Koçak, Murat
This thesis study aims to explore the Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) literature by utilizing bibliometric analysis techniques. In particular, we aimed to investigate the interdisciplinary nature of the fNIRS literature by analyzing co-authorship patterns across departments and countries, and utilizing various bibliometric mapping techniques to identify the oprominent authors, trending research themes and collaboration networks. The raw dataset of fNIRS related articles that were published betweem 1980-2020 were retrieved from the ISI Web of Science database and subjected to bibliometric analysis using the Bibliometrix & biblioshiny-R packages, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer programs. The findings indicated that fNIRS articles that were products of interdisciplinary and international collaboration have a significantly higher share in top JIF quartile categories, which had become more evident especially in the last few years. The most commonly co-cited journals included J Appl Physiol, Biochim Biophys Acta, J Neurosurg, Am J Physiol, Biophys J, Nature, Adv Exp Med Biol, Lancet, Arch Dis Child-Fetal and Pediatr Res. fNIRS literature suggests that at the beginning this field had been led primarily by studies conducted at specific departments such as Biophysics, Physiology, Bioengineering, Medical Physics. Such groundwork studies were then transformed into studies incorporating authors from multiple departments, firstly within medical sciences such as Pediatrics, Surgery, Geriatrics, and then in more applied fields such as Human Factors, Social Psychology, and Economics as evidenced in the diversity of the affiliations of the co-authors in fNIRS publications. The Bibliometric maps highlight the sustained impact of institutions based in the USA, England, Japan and Germany over this field, as well as the recent emergence of China. Departments such as Radiology, Bioengineering, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine, Health, Neuroscience and Neurobiology constitute the core set of disciplines for fNIRS research. Overall, the findings of this thesis study suggest that fNIRS is an increasingly interdisciplinary field of study within Neuroimaging, whose impact is growing as fNIRS is increasingly utilized in previously unexplored settings thanks to its portability and advances in instrumentation and signal processing. Our findings also demonstrate that bibliometric techniques can be used to effectively explore the trends and seminal studies in a field.
Citation Formats
M. Koçak, “BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONAL NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY (FNIRS) IN NEUROIMAGING LITERATURE,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2023.