Studies conducted on physical activity and brain: a bibliometric analysis

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine physical activity and brain-related studies published in international and peer-reviewed journals using the Bibliometric Analysis Method. Material and Methods: By applying the visualized Bibliometric Analysis Method in the study, it was aimed to examine the general distribution characteristics, study progress, and highlights of existing studies on the effects of physical activity on the brain from 2001 to 2022. Studies that were published in journals containing SSCI, SCI-Expanded and AHCI indices of Web of Science (WoS) were examined within the scope of the study. After the elimination criteria were applied, a total of 6007 studies were included in the Bibliometric Analysis. Results: When the year distributions of the publications were examined, it was found that they were few in number from 1990 to 2000, increased as of 2001, and a significant increase was detected especially in 2019. According to the articles reviewed based on WoS citations, it was found that the fields of neuroscience, clinical neurology and psychiatry came to the forefront. Considering the journal distribution of the examined articles, the PLoS One journal was in the first place. Four main clusters emerged in the common word analysis, which were green, red, blue and yellow. It was obtained that the green cluster occupying the center of the map was the field of sports sciences. The words found in the clusters that emerged from the analysis were physical activity, exercise, cognition, aging, Alzheimer’s disease, depression,dementia, and hippocampus. Conclusion: The study systematically summarizes and analyzes studies conducted on the promotion of physical activity by emphasizing the improvement of cognitive functions. It is expected that the study will provide guidance and reference for future research.