Visualized analysis of licorice research hotspots and trends in the field of traditional Chinese medicine resources based on VOSviewer and CiteSpace knowledge maps

The purpose of this study is to analyse the relevant research literature of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) licorice (Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch.), understand the research context, hot spots and development situation of licorice resources, guide the research direction by predicting the research trend, and provide theoretical support for the development of licorice in the field of resource science. The methods we adopted are: Chinese literature through the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) platform, foreign literature through the Web of Science (WOS) platform, collect and sort out the literature data, database build library up to 31 December 2023 included licorice related Chinese and English literature, using CiteSpace 6.2.R6 and 6.3.R1 keywords, authors and institutions such as visual analysis, using VOSviewer1.6.20.0 draw the core keywords, the author and national cooperation co-occurrence network. The analysis has found that: A total of 801 Chinese documents on the topic of liquorice resources, 142 English articles, the total number of documents published gradually increased, the recent slight downward trend; keyword co-occurrence and cluster analysis show that the main content of research focused on chemical composition, clinical efficacy, artificial cultivation, biosynthesis and other aspects; keyword emergent analysis showed that TCM, salt stress, tolerance and accumulation are the recent research hotspot of this discipline; the field has now formed several professional research teams, the author team with outstanding contributions in China is a team represented by Wang Wenquan and Hou Junling, who study germplasm resources as keywords, and a team of authors who have made outstanding contributions internationally, the represented author is Muranaka, Toshiya, Saito, Kazuki and Seki, Hikaru (Japan); the research institutions are mainly centred on Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM) (China), close cooperation among various agencies, the international institutions with outstanding contributions are mainly concentrated in Osaka University (Japan) has the largest number of publications and works in cooperation with several institutions. In conclusion, licorice resource-related research hotspot mainly around its botany and ecology research, chemical composition and clinical application, new technology application development, in recent years, the change of external factors such as environmental climate make people pay more attention to licorice resource use and protection, heat in the field of resources, analyze the current licorice in the research progress in the field of resources, summarize past experience for future research, in the future, it is expected to achieve more scientific, sustainable and efficient use, contribute to the Chinese herbal medicine industry and the healthy development of the ecological environment.