A bibliometric analysis of research trends and mechanisms of olfactory dysfunction in Alzheimer’s diseases from 2008 to 2024

BACKGROUND: Olfactory dysfunction (OD) and Alzheimer disease (AD) represent significant global public health challenges. Growing evidence underscores the need to clarify the neuropathological mechanisms underlying their association. Our study intends to analyze global research trends and overlapping molecular mechanisms underlying OD and AD. METHODS: Reviews and articles on OD and AD published between 2008 and 2024 were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were applied to for the analysis and visualization of the publication outputs, as well as the distribution of countries/regions, institutions and authors, the journals output, keywords co-occurrence, and reference citations. Molecular targets and associated pathways were investigated by GeneCards, STRING, and Metascape databases. RESULTS: One thousand nine hundred sixteen publications were identified, demonstrating steady growth in research output across 7006 institutions from 398 countries. The USA emerged as the top contributor, excelling in both publication output and citation impact. The University of Pennsylvania, University of California San Francisco, and Chinese Academy of Sciences stood out as the top influential institutions. Among 10,476 authors, Thomas Hummel from Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, emerged as the most prominent scholar. In terms of journals, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease leaded in publications in this field. Keywords including "Alzheimer's disease," "olfactory bulb," and "cognitive impairment" represent the current research focuses. A total of 1779 overlapping genes were identified between OD and AD. ACTB, AKT1, TP53, CTNNB1, and INS were identified as the most central regulatory genes. Enrichment analyses revealed involvement in PI3K-Akt, mitogen-activated protein kinases, and cyclic adenosine monophosphate signaling pathways, as well as biological functions related to signaling receptor activator activity, growth factor activity, and cytokine activity. CONCLUSION: Our study uncovers the dynamic research trends on OD and AD, while we further identified shared molecular mechanisms underlying these 2 disorders. Early olfactory risk assessment, diagnosis, and intervention may serve as critical components in the prevention and management in AD.