Background: Acupuncture and moxibustion (AM) are utilized to treat Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, no bibliometric analysis has explored this issue. Thus, this study investigated the status, hotspots and trends of AM in the treatment of AD. Methods: CiteSpace and VOSviewer softwares were used to analyze the literature on the AM for AD in the Web of Science Core Collection database. We analyzed the data of countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors, keywords, and cited references. Results: After removing duplicates, 193 articles were retrieved. The number of publications on this topic has increased gradually. The most productive and collaborative country was China (143 documents), followed by South Korea (19). The top 3 active academic institutions were Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Capital Medicine University, and Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. The most productive journal was Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (13 documents), followed by the Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (10), Medicine (10), and Neural Regeneration Research (10). The top 3 co-cited journals were Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (156 citations), Acupuncture Electro-therapeutics Research (152), and Acupuncture in Medicine (146). The research hotspots in this domain are dementia, memory, hippocampus, mouse models, and Parkinson’s disease. Major frontiers are comparing the therapeutic effects of acupuncture and donepezil and electroacupuncture at different frequencies in this field. Conclusion: This bibliometric study identified relevant hotspots and trends in research on AM in the treatment of AD, which can provide researchers with key information in this domain and help further explore new research directions.

Background: Multimodality magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used to detect vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). However, a bibliometric analysis of this issue remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the research hotspots and trends of multimodality MRI on VCI over the past 12 years based on the Web of Science core collection using CiteSpace Software (6.1R2). Methods: Literature related to multimodality MRI for VCI from 2010 to 2021 was identified and analyzed from the Web of Science core collection database. We analyzed the countries, institutions, authors, cited journals, references, keyword bursts, and clusters using CiteSpace. Results: In total, 587 peer-reviewed documents were retrieved, and the annual number of publications showed an exponential growth trend over the past 12 years. The most productive country was the USA, with 182 articles, followed by China with 134 papers. The top 3 active academic institutions were Capital Medical University, Radboud UNIV Nijmegen, and UNIV Toronto. The most productive journal was the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (33 articles). The most co-cited journal was Neurology, with the highest citations (492) and the highest intermediary centrality (0.14). The top-ranked publishing author was De Leeuw FE (17 articles) with the highest intermediary centrality of 0.04. Ward Law JM was the most cited author (123 citations) and Salat Dh was the most centrally cited author (0.24). The research hotspots of multimodal MRI for VCI include Alzheimer disease, vascular cognitive impairment, white matter intensity, cerebrovascular disease, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, neurovascular coupling, acute ischemic stroke, depression, and cerebral ischemic stroke. The main frontiers in the keywords are fMRI, vascular coupling, and cerebral ischemic stroke, and current research trends include impact, decline, and classification. Conclusions: The findings from this bibliometric study provide research hotspots and trends for multimodality MRI for VCI over the past 12 years, which may help researchers identify hotspots and explore cutting-edge trends in this field.

Disorders of consciousness (DoC) following severe brain injury remain difficult to treat, and effective non-invasive therapeutic options are still limited. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has recently emerged as a promising neuromodulation approach in this field. In this narrative review, we synthesize recent evidence on taVNS for DoC across four domains: neurophysiological mechanisms, multimodal monitoring evidence, clinical efficacy, and stimulation parameter optimization with safety considerations. Current mechanistic models suggest that taVNS may influence consciousness through the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, engaging brainstem nuclei such as the nucleus tractus solitarius and locus coeruleus, and subsequently modulating thalamo-cortical and large-scale cortical networks; this remains a biologically plausible working model rather than a validated causal pathway. Preliminary clinical data suggest that patients in a minimally conscious state may respond more often than those with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome/vegetative state; however, this is a subgroup-level signal—the only sham-controlled randomized trial to date found no significant overall between-group difference—and the evidence remains limited by small samples, protocol heterogeneity, and short follow-up. Multimodal tools including electroencephalography, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, heart rate variability, and serum biomarkers may improve mechanistic understanding and responder stratification, but integrated evidence within the same patient cohorts remains scarce. Overall, taVNS appears to be a promising adjunctive intervention for DoC, but its routine clinical application remains provisional until ongoing multicenter randomized trials clarify efficacy, durability, optimal stimulation parameters, and responder profiles.