Quansah Emmanuel, Karikari Thomas K
Pharmacology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester, LE1 9BH, UK.
Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, School of Biological Science, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
Metab Brain Dis. 2016 Feb;31(1):11-24. doi: 10.1007/s11011-015-9724-7. Epub 2015 Sep 7.
Neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases account for considerable healthcare, economic and social burdens in Ghana. In order to effectively address these burdens, appropriately-trained scientists who conduct high-impact neuroscience research will be needed. Additionally, research directions should be aligned with national research priorities. However, to provide information about current neuroscience research productivity and direction, the existing capacity and focus need to be identified. This would allow opportunities for collaborative research and training to be properly explored and developmental interventions to be better targeted. In this study, we sought to evaluate the existing capacity and direction of neuroscience-related research in Ghana. To do this, we examined publications reporting research investigations authored by scientists affiliated with Ghanaian institutions in specific areas of neuroscience over the last two decades (1995-2015). 127 articles that met our inclusion criteria were systematically evaluated in terms of research foci, annual publication trends and author affiliations. The most actively-researched areas identified include neurocognitive impairments in non-nervous system disorders, depression and suicide, epilepsy and seizures, neurological impact of substance misuse, and neurological disorders. These studies were mostly hospital and community-based surveys. About 60% of these articles were published in the last seven years, suggesting a recent increase in research productivity. However, data on experimental and clinical research outcomes were particularly lacking. We suggest that future investigations should focus on the following specific areas where information was lacking: large-scale disease epidemiology, effectiveness of diagnostic platforms and therapeutic treatments, and the genetic, genomic and molecular bases of diseases.
神经和神经精神疾病给加纳带来了相当大的医疗、经济和社会负担。为了有效应对这些负担，将需要经过适当培训、开展具有重大影响的神经科学研究的科学家。此外，研究方向应与国家研究重点保持一致。然而，为了提供有关当前神经科学研究生产力和方向的信息，需要确定现有的能力和重点。这将使合作研究和培训的机会得到妥善探索，并使发展干预措施更具针对性。在本研究中，我们试图评估加纳神经科学相关研究的现有能力和方向。为此，我们审查了过去二十年（1995 - 2015年）报告由加纳机构附属科学家在神经科学特定领域进行的研究调查的出版物。对符合我们纳入标准的127篇文章，从研究重点、年度出版趋势和作者所属机构等方面进行了系统评估。确定的最活跃研究领域包括非神经系统疾病中的神经认知障碍、抑郁症和自杀、癫痫和发作、药物滥用的神经影响以及神经疾病。这些研究大多是基于医院和社区的调查。这些文章中约60%是在过去七年发表的，表明研究生产力最近有所提高。然而，特别缺乏关于实验和临床研究结果的数据。我们建议未来的调查应集中在以下缺乏信息的特定领域：大规模疾病流行病学、诊断平台和治疗方法的有效性，以及疾病的遗传、基因组和分子基础。
