The aim of this study is to review the research status, hotspots, and developmental trends in the application of optogenetics for visual neural rehabilitation in ophthalmology.

English literatures on the application of optogenetics in ophthalmic visual nerve rehabilitation from the establishment of the Web of Science Core Collection to December 2025 were retrieved. After data deduplication, standardized processing and bibliometric analysis were performed on publication year, research institutions, authors, journal sources, keywords and other indicators. VOSviewer, CiteSpace and the Bibliometrix R package were adopted to construct visual mapping graphs, and further analyzed the distribution of publishing journals, national/regional research layout, research collaboration networks of institutions and authors, core authors, high-frequency keyword co-occurrence network, keyword thematic map, as well as the temporal ranking of keyword bursts.

A total of 258 English literatures were finally included. The average annual publication output increased significantly after 2015, reaching peak values of 31 publications in 2022 and 32 publications in 2025 respectively. The publications were distributed across 148 journals, mainly including comprehensive journals, neuroscience journals and ophthalmology journals. International Journal of Molecular Sciences published 11 articles, accounting for 4.12% of the total. Among the literatures on the application of optogenetics in ophthalmic visual nerve rehabilitation, scholars from the United States contributed 85 articles, followed by the United Kingdom with 34 articles; French publications had an average citation of 58.84 times, representing the highest paper quality. The University of Oxford published the largest number of articles with 19. A total of 1069 authors were involved in the included literatures. Scholar Sahel Jose-Alain published the most papers with 18, which have been cited 1603 times. The research cluster formed by the team of Picaud Serge was the largest collaboration cluster. A total of 363 keywords were extracted via CiteSpace keyword network mapping analysis of the English literatures. Ten keyword nodes including gene therapy, retinitis pigmentosa, channelrhodopsin-2, ganglion cells, visual function, retinal degeneration, expression, responses, aav vector and in vivo had a betweenness centrality greater than 0.1. Keyword burst analysis showed that the burst strength of photoreceptor degeneration was 8.87; it also had the longest burst duration, spanning from 2011 to 2017.

Research on the application of optogenetics in visual neural rehabilitation in ophthalmology is currently in a phase of rapid growth. Hotspots include gene therapy, mechanisms of retinal diseases, and regulation of visual responses. Future trends are expected to focus on the exploration and application of cutting-edge technologies such as stem cells, CRISPR gene editing, and neuroprotection.