Research hotspots and trends of optogenetics in behavioral neuroscience

• A total of 859 articles from 47 countries, 834 institutions, and 5,525 authors were analyzed, revealing a significant increase in publications since 2020. • The United States and European high-income countries lead in research output and influence, with core institutions including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stanford, Columbia, UC San Diego, and University of Washington. • Current research hotspots focus on emotion regulation, reward and motivation, and social behavior modeling, with future directions toward sleep-related emotional disorders and higher cognitive functions. • The field is evolving from basic mechanisms to complex behavioral systems and from single-modal to multimodal integration.