Alzheimer’s disease research in the future: bibliometric analysis of cholinesterase inhibitors from 1993 to 2012

In this study, the bibliometric study of cholinesterase inhibitors was used to find the trend of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research and the order of drugs which was most tolerated or more effective in AD treatment. 4,982 articles and reviews from the Science Citation Index Expanded during 1993–2012 were analyzed. The main results were as follows: The publication of cholinesterase inhibitor research increased overall during 1993–2012. Chinese Academy of Science had most publications, University of California, San Diego and Hebrew University of Jerusalem won first place with the highest average citation per paper and the highest h-index respectively. Neurosciences, pharmacology and chemistry were “raising” subject categories in cholinesterase inhibitors research. With the comprehensive analysis of distribution and change of author keywords in two 10-year-time periods, it can be concluded as follows: (i) the order of drugs which was most tolerated or more effective in AD treatment might be donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine, tacrine, memantine and huperzine A, and memantine attracted increasing interest recently and might be used more frequently now, especially for moderate to severe dementia. (ii) The pathogenesis of oxidative stress hypothesis attracted extensive attention. The interest to β-amyloid cascade hypothesis increased slightly but that of the cholinergic hypothesis decreased during the past decade. (iii) “Oxidative stress”, “β-amyloid”, “neuroprotection”, “memory” and “cognition” are the main orientations in the AD research in the future.