Thread by @mahmoudbukar

#AfricanNeuroscience [Thread]

Ever wondered what #Neuroscience research looks like in #Africa? For 3 years, we have been working on profiling the neuroscience research landscape in the continent’s 54 countries. Very excited to share our latest work: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

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https://twitter.com/biorxivpreprint/status/1268676949209223170

Why is this important?
#Africa has real potential in #Neuroscience, but needs help to rise from its current position! To do this, we need accurate data that reflects the heterogeneity of research across the continent's 54 countries.

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Such data is lacking, as previous estimates about research outputs from #Africa are mostly inaccurate, partly because it is difficult to tell whether the research was, in fact, conducted within Africa or outside the continent in collaboration with #Africanscientists

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In 2017, I assembled a team of 19 like-minded scientists (@MosabAli20, @babasaraki01, @ygarbawala1, @AminAbdulbasit..) & 2 fantastic mentors @NeuroFishh/@neuroluci to profile #African #Neuroscience. We retrieved all of Africa's 12,326 Neuroscience output over the past 21.

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From this, we uniquely verified that only 5,219, on average only ~5 per country & year, were driven by #African Labs. From here, we extracted metrics such as the journal & citations, detailed information on funding, collaborations and the techniques and model systems used.

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To put this in a global context, we also extracted the same info from randomly selected publications over the past 21 years from the #UK, #UnitedStates, #Australia, #Japan and #Brazil. We link these metrics to demographic data and indicators of mobility and economy.

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Key findings:
i) Africa's #Neuroscience output since 1997 has been dominated by #Egypt, #SouthAfrica, #Nigeria, #Morocco and #Tunisia. Although outputs from other countries are also on the rise.

ii) Neurodegeneration & injury is the dominant research theme in #Africa.

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iii) Sadly, no #African country used any genetically modified model (#GMO) systems (including cell culture or mice) in more than 1% of their #Neuroscience publications in the past 21 years. Most countries used none at all.

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iv) There is a rare usage of 'advanced' techniques/equipment in #African Labs. 'Advanced' here includes fluorescence #microscopy, electron microscopy, #molecular biology or cell culture work.

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v) West-African countries have invested heavily in the use of endemic #medicinal plants, most notably #Cameroon, #Nigeria & #Ghana. In contrast, many other countries, including Africa's leading science powerhouses of #Egypt & #SouthAfrica are more focussed on other topics

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vi) With a mean of ~13 citations per paper, West #African publications tended to be cited least frequently than the other regions. In contrast, Southern Africa's publications were on average cited 31 times, on par with those coming from #Brazil.

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vii) Nevertheless, though dominated by the 'Global North' (here: UK, USA, Japan, Australia, mean of ~77 citations per paper), also researchers from most #African regions published at least a small fraction of papers in the top bracket (citations ≥ 95).

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viii) There is a low level of long distance intra-African collaboration.

ix) Although many did not declare their funding source, of those who did, most #AfricanNeuroscience research was supported by international rather than domestic agencies, except for #SouthAfrica.

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x) The vast majority of international funding was from the #UnitedStates and the #UK. By agency, @NIH was the top funder of #AfricanNeuroscience research, followed by @wellcometrust.

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Overall, our unique dataset has enabled us to gain accurate and in-depth info on the current state of #AfricanNeuroscience research. This, in turn, allow us to make actionable recommendations on how African research might best be supported in the future.

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If interested in the analysis of individual countries, our dataset can be found here github.com/BadenLab/Afric….

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Finally, you may also be interested in our in-depth analysis of this data on #Nigerian #Neuroscience which was published by @EJNeuroscience and accessible via: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

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This thread may be of interest to: @ibroSecretariat @SfNtweets @BritishNeuro @FENSorg @AASciences

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