Neuroscience research in Africa: Current status

•This is a review article covering the African neuroscience publications during the period from Jan. 2003 to Jan. 2013.•South Africa occupied the first place among the top ten publishing African countries followed by Egypt.•Most of the published articles are in the field of clinical neurology rather than basic neuroscience.•The intensity of publications correlating with GDP, not however with the number of medical schools

There are limited data on the contribution of the African continent to neuroscience research and publications. This review aims to provide a clear view on the state of neuroscience research among African countries, and to compare neuroscience research within the 52 African countries. A literature review search was conducted for all published articles by African authors in both local and international journals using Medline and other primary databases. Neuroscience represents 9.1% of the total medical publications. The highest percentage of neuroscience publications comes from South Africa. There is a positive correlation between the Gross Domestic Product and the total number of neuroscience publications among African countries. There is therefore an urgent need to develop strategies to improve neuroscience research in African countries.