Probiotics and children’s neurodevelopment research mapped in new bibliometric analysis

Research on probiotics and children’s neurodevelopment has grown so quickly that researchers have now stepped back to map the field itself. A new bibliometric analysis, published in the journal 3 Biotech, quantifies nearly three decades of publications on the topic and identifies where the science is heading next.

Guohui Sun, Tianwei Guo, Weihong Lang, Fangyuan Peng, Xiling Jiang and Jianxing Chen retrieved publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection from 1998 to 2026, with the search conducted on 21 May 2026, meaning the final year is only partially covered. Their predefined search strategy combined terms related to probiotics, children and neurodevelopment. After screening and deduplication, 1,684 documents were included in the analysis.

The team used the bibliometrix R package together with igraph, ggplot2 and wordcloud to analyze bibliometric indicators, including annual publication trends, productive authors and journals, keyword co-occurrence networks, temporal trends in keyword frequency, and the top 15 most frequently cited references. Common keyword synonyms were merged before the networks were constructed, a step intended to keep the visualized maps from being distorted by duplicate terminology.

The publication record shows a field that has expanded in two distinct phases. Annual output increased steadily from 1998 to 2015, then accelerated sharply after 2020, reaching a peak in 2025. The most frequent publication venues for this research were the journals Nutrients and Frontiers in Microbiology.

Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed a core network centered on four themes: Gut Microbiota, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Probiotics and the Gut-Brain Axis. One node stood out as a newer arrival. ADHD emerged as a distinct and increasingly prominent node in the 2020 to 2026 period, suggesting that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder has become a growing focus within the field’s recent conversation.

Temporal trends in keyword frequency pointed to a change in the character of the research itself. The analysis indicates a shift from broad descriptive associations toward more specialized terms such as Dysbiosis, Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, Neuroinflammation and Metabolomics. According to the authors, the field is moving from observational studies toward mechanism-oriented and interventional research, with ADHD and multi-omics approaches representing important emerging directions.

The intellectual foundations of the field also came into view. Highly cited documents, and the top 15 most frequently cited references, were anchored by seminal works on the gut-brain axis and microbiome-behavior relationships, forming what the authors describe as a stable intellectual base for subsequent research.

As a bibliometric study, the work maps the structure and trends of published research rather than evaluating whether probiotics improve any neurodevelopmental outcome. The authors note that translational implications include stratifying patients by neurodevelopmental diagnosis and microbial profile, and testing mechanism-guided probiotic or synbiotic formulations in future trials. These are proposed directions for future research, not findings of clinical benefit established by this analysis.

The authors also flag an important limitation: because the analysis drew on a single database, the findings should be interpreted with caution, and future studies should integrate additional databases to validate and extend them. Within that scope, the study offers a comprehensive overview of the research landscape in probiotics and children’s neurodevelopment, intended to help researchers understand the structure of the field and identify promising areas for future investigation.

Subject of Research: Bibliometric mapping of global research trends on probiotics and children's neurodevelopment

Article Title: Global research trends and emerging hotspots in probiotics and children’s neurodevelopment: a bibliometric and visualized analysis (1998–2026, partial year)

Article References: Sun, G., Guo, T., Lang, W., Peng, F., Jiang, X., & Chen, J. (2026). Global research trends and emerging hotspots in probiotics and children’s neurodevelopment: a bibliometric and visualized analysis (1998–2026, partial year). 3 Biotech, 16(11), Article 473. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-026-05105-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s13205-026-05105-2

Keywords: probiotics, children's neurodevelopment, bibliometrics, gut-brain axis, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, gut microbiota, dysbiosis, fecal microbiota transplantation, neuroinflammation, metabolomics, Web of Science