Opportunities and trends of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation

Background: After more than two decades of development, transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has surpassed its role as a mere alternative to VNS and is now applied to various disorders. This study presents a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the global scientific output of taVNS research, aiming to describe its current status and identify potential future trends. Methods: We conducted a systematic retrieval of taVNS-related studies published between 2000 and 2022 from the Web of Science database. VOSviewer was used to construct networks based on country/institution/author co-authorship, journal/reference co-citation analysis, literature citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence. Results: A total of 523 relevant articles and reviews were included. Since 2012, there has been a rapid increase in publications and citations. China emerged as the leading contributor in terms of publication output, while Germany had the highest number of citations. Interestingly, research groups from different countries exhibited distinct research ideas and characteristics concerning taVNS, yet collaboration between these groups remained limited. Through a focused examination of key aspects in this field, we identified significant opportunities for the future advancement of taVNS. Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis emphasizes the interest in and recognition of taVNS as a therapeutic intervention and identifies broader clinical applications, more precise stimulation, and the development and commercialization of wearable devices as key opportunities and challenges for the future.