La ética en la neurociencia aplicada a alimentos: Un análisis bibliométrico

Technological advances in the field of neuroscience are enabling new investigations of consumer decision-making processes in today's world settings. The purpose of this study was to analyze the evolution, characteristics, and relationships of research in neuroscience applied to food, but with an ethical approach. A bibliometric analysis was carried out with scientific information taken from the Scopus database, years 2005 to 2023, search words Ethics, neuroscience and food and using VosViewer and Bibliometrix. It was found that the United Kingdom is the most productive country with emphasis on 4 areas: animal welfare, reward, treatment, and deep brain stimulation, followed by the United States, which concentrates its research in neuroscience and health education. The countries that have related their research to ethics are France and the United States. With the VosViewer co-occurrence analysis, two clusters are visualized, one of neuroscience studies in humans, and another of neuroscience studies in non-humans or animals. In both ethics as an important aspect of analysis. With Bibliometrix, five clusters are visualized: neuroscience, health education, animal welfare, marketing-ethics, and Alzheimer-brain-neuroethics. Animal welfare is a basic topic, neuroscience (as pure science) a topic in decline, health education and studies in Alzheimer-brain-neuroethics are niche topics, and motor topics are associated with marketing and ethics. With the word cloud technique, it is observed that from 1996 to 2011 neuroscience studies in humans stand out; between 2012 and 2017 studies on the human brain and ethics; From 2018 to the present, neuroscience studies in humans continue to be in force, appearing as an important topic in animal welfare studies, associated with ethics. The brain-human binomial becomes a relevant issue from 2012 to the present. Research in humans and the brain, associated with ethical aspects, is of greater importance as of 2015. In conclusion, studying the brain and animal welfare, associated with ethics, are topics for future research.