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Subfield · Neuroscience

Neurology research

Neurology is a subfield of Neuroscience. Science Explorer counts 268k research works in it since 1950. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system.

Research works
268k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
27k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
10
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+38%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
34% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Neurology (Neuroscience)

What is Neurology research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Ischemic Stroke, Neurodegeneration, Brain Tumor, MRI, Functional Connectivity, Microglia. Gaining share since 2011-15: Brain Tumor, MRI, Cholinergic Antiinflammatory Pathway, Vagus Nerve Stimulation. Losing share: Cerebral Hypoperfusion, Vascular Cognitive Impairment, neurological history, neuroscience pioneers.

▲ gaining share of this field◆ holding its share▼ losing share

Size is the world's fractional works in 2021-25 in the topics tagged with each word; colour compares the word's share of this field with 2011-15. Each links to the topic it comes from most.

All 27 words, with their numbers
  1. Ischemic Stroke21k◆ 0.96×2 topics
  2. Neurodegeneration18k◆ 0.95×2 topics
  3. Brain Tumor17k▲ 5.7×1 topic
  4. MRI17k▲ 5.7×1 topic
  5. Functional Connectivity16k◆ 0.87×2 topics
  6. Microglia15k◆ 1.06×1 topic
  7. Neuroinflammation15k◆ 1.06×1 topic
  8. Oxidative Stress13k▼ 0.61×2 topics
  9. Neuroimaging11k▼ 0.73×2 topics
  10. Neurological Disorders11k▼ 0.72×2 topics
  11. Cerebellum8,779▼ 0.79×1 topic
  12. Vestibular8,779▼ 0.79×1 topic
  13. Mitochondrial Dysfunction8,694▼ 0.70×2 topics
  14. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation7,535◆ 0.98×1 topic
  15. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation7,535◆ 0.98×1 topic
  16. Cerebral Hypoperfusion6,992▼ 0.51×1 topic
  17. Vascular Cognitive Impairment6,992▼ 0.51×1 topic
  18. Cerebrolysin6,220▼ 0.77×1 topic
  19. Citicoline6,220▼ 0.77×1 topic
  20. Cholinergic Antiinflammatory Pathway3,496▲ 1.25×1 topic
  21. Vagus Nerve Stimulation3,496▲ 1.25×1 topic
  22. Blood-Brain Barrier3,414◆ 0.87×1 topic
  23. Neurovascular Unit3,414◆ 0.87×1 topic
  24. Brain Iron Accumulation2,475▼ 0.57×1 topic
  25. Pantothenate Kinase2,475▼ 0.57×1 topic
  26. neurological history2,473▼ 0.54×1 topic
  27. neuroscience pioneers2,473▼ 0.54×1 topic

Which countries lead Neurology research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany rank highest in Neurology. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (17k and 12k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 1.03× citation excellence · 1.83× journals · 100% breadth 11.2% top 10% · 10k works
  2. 2 United Kingdom #3 all time 1.34× citation excellence · 1.81× journals · 100% breadth 13.9% top 10% · 1.7k works
  3. 3 Germany #2 all time 1.24× citation excellence · 1.75× journals · 100% breadth 11.3% top 10% · 2k works
  4. 4 China #6 all time 1.14× citation excellence · 0.56× journals · 100% breadth 11.6% top 10% · 15k works
  5. 5 France #4 all time 1.12× citation excellence · 1.74× journals · 100% breadth 8.5% top 10% · 1.2k works
  6. 6 Canada #5 all time 1.15× citation excellence · 1.49× journals · 100% breadth 11.1% top 10% · 1.2k works
  7. 7 Switzerland #7 all time 1.25× citation excellence · 2.22× journals · 100% breadth 13.9% top 10% · 393 works
  8. 8 Netherlands #8 all time 1.41× citation excellence · 1.55× journals · 100% breadth 14.5% top 10% · 530 works
  9. 9 Italy #10 all time 1.43× citation excellence · 0.76× journals · 100% breadth 14.3% top 10% · 1.4k works
  10. 10 Australia #9 all time 1.27× citation excellence · 1.19× journals · 100% breadth 13.1% top 10% · 831 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 34 countries ranked in Neurology. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Neurology

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 17k works
  2. 2 United States 12k works
  3. 3 India 7.6k works
  4. 4 Germany 2.3k works
  5. 5 Japan 2.2k works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 2k works
  7. 7 Russia 2k works
  8. 8 Italy 1.7k works
  9. 9 South Korea 1.6k works
  10. 10 France 1.4k works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 34.1%United States: 24.6%India: 15.2%Germany: 4.6%6 others listed: 21.6%34%largest
China17k · 34.1%United States12k · 24.6%India7,572 · 15.2%Germany2,302 · 4.6%6 others listed11k · 21.6%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Neurology research?

Harvard University (United States) ranks first in Neurology on research quality in 2022-now, followed by University College London and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Harvard University United States · Cambridge · #1 all time 16.5% top 10% · 502 works
  2. 2 University College London United Kingdom · London · #2 all time 17.7% top 10% · 214 works
  3. 3 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #16 all time 17.0% top 10% · 247 works
  4. 4 National Institutes of Health United States · Bethesda · #4 all time 14.5% top 10% · 156 works
  5. 5 Johns Hopkins University United States · Baltimore · #3 all time 11.6% top 10% · 200 works
  6. 6 Stanford University United States · Stanford · #5 all time 16.0% top 10% · 136 works
  7. 7 University of California, San Francisco United States · San Francisco · #7 all time 16.5% top 10% · 99 works
  8. 8 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France · Paris · #9 all time 8.9% top 10% · 258 works
  9. 9 Washington University in St. Louis United States · St Louis · #6 all time 16.6% top 10% · 95 works
  10. 10 Shanghai Jiao Tong University China · Shanghai · #46 all time 14.2% top 10% · 303 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 136 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Neurology.

Top 100 Neurology institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Harvard UniversityUnited States 570 works
  2. 2 Capital Medical UniversityChina 475 works
  3. 3 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 351 works
  4. 4 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 336 works
  5. 5 Fudan UniversityChina 313 works
  6. 6 Sun Yat-sen UniversityChina 299 works
  7. 7 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 297 works
  8. 8 SRM Institute of Science and TechnologyIndia 284 works
  9. 9 Zhejiang UniversityChina 277 works
  10. 10 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 275 works

Who are the leading researchers in Neurology?

Counting only their work in Neurology, Álvaro Pascual‐Leone, John C. Rothwell and Marco Prinz have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Álvaro Pascual‐Leone United States · #16,143 worldwide overall 78.6 of 236 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 John C. Rothwell United Kingdom · #39,114 worldwide overall 82.0 of 292 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Marco Prinz Germany · #8,167 worldwide overall 52.3 of 91 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Dennis W. Dickson United States · #15,129 worldwide overall 58.6 of 181 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Michael Andreas Nitsche Germany · #46,192 worldwide overall 66.5 of 198 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 John Q. Trojanowski United States · #1,186 worldwide overall 49.8 of 108 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Kaj Blennow Sweden · #14,167 worldwide overall 56.4 of 177 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Henrik Zetterberg Sweden · #11,252 worldwide overall 54.5 of 171 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 David M. Holtzman United States · #674 worldwide overall 44.1 of 68 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Ulf Ziemann Germany · #52,570 worldwide overall 52.6 of 158 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Neurology alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 950,478 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Neurology researchers

What are the most cited papers in Neurology?

The most cited paper in Neurology is "[Japanese version of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory--a scoring system for neuropsychiatric disturbance in dementia patients]." (Nobutsugu Hirono, Etsuro Mori, Yoshitaka Ikejiri et al., 1997), with 20,864 citations. Next come "Classification of subtype of acute ischemic stroke. Definitions for use in a multicenter clinical trial. TOAST. Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment." (12,468) and "A synaptic model of memory: long-term potentiation in the hippocampus" (11,655).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 [Japanese version of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory--a scoring system for neuropsychiatric disturbance in dementia patients]. Nobutsugu Hirono, Etsuro Mori, Yoshitaka Ikejiri et al. · PubMed Mar 1997 20,864
2 Classification of subtype of acute ischemic stroke. Definitions for use in a multicenter clinical trial. TOAST. Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment. Harold P. Adams, Birgitte H. Bendixen, L. Jaap Kappelle et al. · Stroke Open access 1993 12,468
3 A synaptic model of memory: long-term potentiation in the hippocampus T.V.P. Bliss, Graham L. Collingridge · Nature 1993 11,655
4 Staging of brain pathology related to sporadic Parkinson’s disease Heiko Braak, Kelly Del Tredici, Udo Rüb et al. · Neurobiology of Aging 28 Dec 2002 10,980
5 The diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging‐Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease Marilyn S. Albert, Steven T. DeKosky, Dennis W. Dickson et al. · Alzheimer s & Dementia Open access 22 Apr 2011 10,419
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Neurology research done?

The largest centres of Neurology research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Chennai (India) and Guangzhou (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Pozzilli, Hrodna and Cangzhou.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 2.3k works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 1.3k works
  3. 3 ChennaiIndia 1.1k works
  4. 4 GuangzhouChina 915 works
  5. 5 MoscowRussia 857 works
  6. 6 LondonUnited Kingdom 734 works
  7. 7 NanjingChina 727 works
  8. 8 SeoulSouth Korea 687 works
  9. 9 HangzhouChina 648 works
  10. 10 WuhanChina 632 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. PozzilliIT · 22.1 works15×
  2. HrodnaBY · 24.1 works9.7×
  3. CangzhouCN · 29.7 works8.1×
  4. ManhassetUS · 23.8 works8.1×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Neurology than the world average.

See Neurology on the map

Neurology research by country

The best places for Neurology research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Neurology?

Among universities, judged by research, Harvard University, University College London and Johns Hopkins University score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 14.56%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University College L…Harvard UniversityStanford UniversityJohns Hopkins Univer…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Harvard UniversityUnited States 90.1#1 (#1)16.3%3.0×570 +12.7%
2University College LondonUnited Kingdom 80.5#2 (#2)17.0%2.6×246 +11.3%
3Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 71.0#5 (#3)11.7%2.6×238 +5.4%
4Stanford UniversityUnited States 66.0#6 (#5)15.1%1.9×165 +3.2%
5University of California, San FranciscoUnited States 62.8#7 (#7)15.4%2.8×117 -4.6%
6Washington University in St. LouisUnited States 62.2#9 (#6)16.3%2.6×112 +0.3%
7University of California, Los AngelesUnited States 58.7#11 (#10)12.5%2.1×141 +15.8%
8University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 56.3#13 (#11)16.4%1.1×89 -8.7%
9University of TorontoCanada 56.1#16 (#20)12.1%2.1×255 +14.3%
10Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität MünchenGermany 55.3#12 (#8)12.8%2.7×139 -19.4%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Neurology, country by country

Is Neurology research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 38% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Brain Tumor Detection and Classification, Vagus Nerve Stimulation Research and Barrier Structure and Function Studies.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Neurology as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.29% in 2024.

still counting0.20%0.40%Neurology0.31% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Neurology over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Neurology9.9% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

  1. Brain Tumor Detection and Classification+226%
  2. Vagus Nerve Stimulation Research+50%
  3. Barrier Structure and Function Studies+29%
  4. Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration Mechanisms+25%
  5. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies+23%
  6. Vestibular and auditory disorders+10%
  7. Neurological diseases and metabolism-2%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

Growth in output from 2018-21 to 2022-25. Every topic is a page of its own.

What does Neurology include?

Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration Mechanisms: 51k fractional worksVestibular and auditory disorders: 44k fractional worksNeurological Disease Mec…31kNeurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments: 31k fractional worksNeurological Disorders a…29kNeurological Disorders and Treatments: 29k fractional worksTranscranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies: 27k fractional worksBrain Tumor Detection and Classification: 26k fractional worksNeurology and Historical…18kNeurology and Historical Studies: 18k fractional worksNeurological diseases and metabolism: 16k fractional worksBarrier Structure and Function Studies: 16k fractional worksVagus Nerve Stimulation Research: 11k fractional works

Area is fractional works in that topic. Every name below is a page of its own.

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Who leads Neurology, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Neurology, for a post or a slide.

Download the card

1200 × 630 PNG, sized for social posts, drawn from the latest snapshot.

The leading institutions' badges6Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

Discussion

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