The Web of Science Core Collection database was queried, with the search period extending from the database’s inception to December 31, 2024. The search terms were not only meticulously crafted using the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) database to ensure comprehensive retrieval of relevant keywords but also informed by search strategies from prior studies (Dong et al., 2023; Xiu et al., 2023; Shen et al., 2024; Zhu et al., 2024). TS = ((Gastrointestinal Microbiomes) OR (Gastrointestinal Microbiome) OR (Microbiome, Gastrointestinal) OR (GI Microbiome) OR (GI Microfloras) OR (GI Microflora) OR (GI Microbiomes) OR (Enteric Microbiotas) OR (Enteric Microflora Flora) OR (Enteric Microflora Floras) OR (Enteric Microbiota) OR (Gastrointestinal Flora) OR (Gut Flora) OR (Gut Microflora) OR (Gastrointestinal Microflora) OR (Gut Microbiome) OR (Gut Microbiomes) OR (Gastrointestinal Microbiota) OR (Gastrointestinal Microbiotas) OR (Microflora) OR (Microfloras) OR (gut microbiota) OR (gut microbiotas) OR (Gastrointestinal Microbial Community) OR (Gastrointestinal Microbial Communities) OR (Intestinal Microbiome) OR (Intestinal Microbiomes) OR (Intestinal Microflora) OR (Intestinal Flora) OR (Intestinal Microbiota) OR (Intestinal Microbiotas) OR (Enteric Bacteria) OR (Gastric Microbiome) OR (Gastric Microbiomes)) AND TS = ((Dyssomnia) OR (Sleep Disorders) OR (Sleep Disorder) OR (Nocturnal Eating Drinking Syndrome) OR (Nocturnal Eating Drinking Syndromes)). Inclusion criteria: (1) Studies related to gut microbiota and Sleep Disorder; (2) Document types classified as “Article” and “Review”; (3) Language restricted to English. Post-screening, the “Export Records to Plain Text File” option was utilized to export the literature for subsequent bibliometric analysis. Two authors independently conducted literature screening and data extraction. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion with a third author to reach consensus. This review complied with the PRISMA guidelines (Figure 1).

Bibliometric and visualization analyses were conducted using VOSviewer and CiteSpace software. VOSviewer’s co-authorship function was employed for analyzing collaboration networks among countries, institutions, and authors, while Bibliographic coupling was used for journal coupling network analysis, and the co-occurrence function was applied for keyword co-occurrence analysis. Nodes were included if they met a minimum occurrence threshold of 10 times for keywords or 5 publications for authors or institutions. Select the association strength for the normalization method. The results from VOSviewer can be visualized using density visualization to display the magnitude of documents and citations, overlay visualization to show the timeline of the analysis target, and network visualization to depict the collaboration network of the analysis target. CiteSpace (v6.1. R6) software was utilized for clustering and burst analysis, with “Time Slicing” set from “2010 JAN to 2024 DEC,” “Years Per Slice” set to 1. “Strength” was set to “cosine,” “scope” to “within slice,” and “Selection Criteria” to “g-index.” Burst detection algorithms were employed to analyze citations and keywords, and keyword clustering was performed using a logarithmic likelihood ratio-based clustering algorithm.

As of December 31, 2024, a total of 444 articles meeting our selection criteria have been published in the Web of Science database, comprising 278 articles and 166 reviews. The inaugural publication concerning gut microbiota and sleep disorders appeared in 2010. As illustrated in Figure 2, the annual number of publications remained below 50 until 2021, with a notable increase to 84 articles in 2022, nearly doubling the count from 2021. In 2024, the number of publications reached 125, representing a 30-fold increase compared to 2014. The polynomial model fitting curve indicates a consistent annual growth in publications related to gut microbiota and sleep disorders, with projections suggesting continued growth (R² = 0.947).

A total of 69 countries have contributed to the field concerning gut microbiota and sleep disorders. The publication and citation volumes for each country can be visualized through density visualization maps (Figures 3A,B), where greater brightness indicates higher values. Among the top 10 countries in terms of publication volume, China leads significantly with 177 publications, followed by the United States (n = 85) and Italy (n = 34). Analyzing the annual publication volumes of these 10 countries reveals that, overall, the United States maintained a leading position in annual publications before 2020, after which China’s annual publication volume began to surpass that of the United States. In terms of total citation counts, the top three countries are the United States (n = 3,717), China (n = 2,862), and Australia (n = 1,235) (Figures 3C,D). A co-authorship analysis of these countries indicates that the United States exhibits the highest level of international collaboration (TLS = 86), followed by Australia (TLS = 62) and China (TLS = 46). Notably, the collaboration between China and the United States is the most robust (Link strength = 13), and there is also significant collaboration between Australia and the United Kingdom (Figures 3C,E).

A total of 915 institutions have published articles on gut microbiota and sleep disorders, with the top 10 institutions by publication volume illustrated in Figure 4A. Shanghai Jiao Tong University leads with 14 publications, followed by China Agricultural University (n = 11) and Southern Medical University (n = 10). The institutions with the highest citation counts are Deakin University with 876 citations, University College Cork with 619 citations, and China Agricultural University with 356 citations. The strongest collaborative ties are observed among Deakin University (TLS = 5), Ningbo University (TLS = 5), and Peking University (TLS = 4) as depicted in Figure 4A. Additionally, 20 institutions have published more than five articles, and a visualization of the institutional collaboration network reveals that Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shandong University, Nanjing Medical University, Peking University, Wuhan University, and Zhejiang University form the most collaborative groups. Conversely, institutions such as the University of California, San Diego, University College Cork, and China Agricultural University exhibit no collaborative relationships with other institutions (Figure 4B).

A total of 2,870 authors have contributed articles on gut microbiota and sleep disorders. Among them, nine authors have published more than five articles. The publication output, citation count, and degree of collaboration of these nine prolific authors are illustrated in Figure 5A. Figure 5B lists the nine authors with the highest publication volume, highlighting the collaborative relationships among these prolific authors. The cluster formed by Cao J, Chen YX, Wang ZX, Dong YL, and Gao T exhibits the highest degree of collaboration. Cryan JF, although not collaborating with other prolific authors, has the highest citation count (Figures 5A,B).

A total of 246 journals have contributed articles on gut microbiota and sleep disorders, with 16 journals publishing more than five articles in this domain. The journal “Nutrients” has the highest number of publications (n = 20), followed by “Frontiers in Microbiology” (n = 14) and “International Journal of Molecular Sciences” (n = 14). The citation counts for these three journals are 388, 135, and 464, respectively. The top 10 journals by publication volume are listed in Table 1, all of which have an impact factor greater than 3. Among these, six journals are classified in the Q1 category of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), while four are in the Q2 category. A bibliographic coupling analysis using VOSviewer on 56 journals with more than five publications revealed that “Nature and Science of Sleep” is a journal with a relatively high recent publication volume, with an average publication year of 2023.00 (Figure 6).

In the research concerning gut microbiota and sleep disorders, a total of 33,342 references have been cited. The most frequently cited article is “Gut microbiome diversity is associated with sleep physiology in humans” authored by Smith et al., published in 2019 in PLOS ONE (Smith et al., 2019), with 41 citations and a citation half-life of 3.5 years. Following this, the article “Sleep, circadian rhythm, and gut microbiota” by Matenchuk et al., published in 2020 in SLEEP MED REV (Matenchuk et al., 2020), has been cited 40 times, with a citation half-life of 2.5 years. Subsequently, the paper “The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis” by Cryan et al., published in 2019 in PHYSIOL REV (Cryan et al., 2019), received 37 citations, with a citation half-life of 2.5 years (Table 2). Utilizing CiteSpace for Citation Bursts analysis of references, the top 25 articles with the strongest citation bursts were analyzed. The results revealed that the article “Chronic Sleep Disruption Alters Gut Microbiota, Induces Systemic and Adipose Tissue Inflammation and Insulin Resistance in Mice” by Poroyko et al., published in 2016 in SCI REP (Poroyko et al., 2016), exhibited the strongest citation burst (Strength = 10.66) and the longest duration from 2017 to 2021. Additionally, the study “Gut microbiota composition in children with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome: a pilot study” by Valentini et al., published in 2020 in SLEEP MED (Valentini et al., 2020), is currently experiencing a citation burst period (2023–2025) (Figure 7).

Co-occurrence analysis plays a pivotal role in monitoring scientific development by exploring popular research directions and domains through the analysis of relationships between keywords. Utilizing VOSviewer, a co-occurrence analysis was conducted on keywords appearing at least ten times, resulting in the identification of 92 keywords (Figure 8A). The top ten keywords with the highest occurrence are as follows: gut microbiota (occurrences = 182, TLS = 745), sleep (occurrences = 86, TLS = 402), depression (occurrences = 66, TLS = 361), inflammation (occurrences = 63, TLS = 328), chain fatty-acids (occurrences = 41, TLS = 226), anxiety (occurrences = 40, TLS = 1,229), brain (occurrences = 40, TLS = 217), oxidative stress (occurrences = 40, TLS = 213), obesity (occurrences = 39, TLS = 213), and health (occurrences = 38, TLS = 187) (Figures 8A,B). Furthermore, keyword co-occurrence clustering was computed using CiteSpace, revealing that keywords can be categorized into seven clusters: obstructive sleep apnea, stress, autism spectrum disorder, circadian rhythm, sleep quality, sleep deprivation, and Parkinson’s disease (Figure 8C; Table 3). Clusters are numbered starting from 0, with cluster 0 being the largest and cluster 7 the smallest. The “average year” reflects the mean year of keyword occurrence within a cluster, with later years indicating a more cutting-edge research focus. From the perspective of average year of keyword cluster occurrence, sleep quality has the latest average time of occurrence, 2021, highlighting the forefront of research on gut microbiota and sleep disorders. The silhouette values indicate that the closer the value is to 1, the more distinct the theme of the cluster, and the more similar the content of the articles within the cluster, representing a concentrated focus by researchers on the issue (Isola et al., 2025). Obstructive sleep apnea and circadian rhythm have relatively high silhouette coefficients, indicating concentrated research attention in these areas. Keyword citation burst analysis identified six instances of citation bursts, with obesity exhibiting the strongest citation burst (Strength = 3.21) and the longest duration (2017–2022). Additionally, the keyword fecal microbiota transplantation is currently experiencing a citation burst period (2023–2025) (Figure 8D).