A paper led by UCD scientists is currently the No 1 Hot Paper in Nature Medicine, according to Thompson Reuters. The paper has been cited almost 3 times more than any other paper published by the journal over the past 24 months. Broadly speaking, a citation is a reference in a published source which acknowledges the relevance of previously published work to the topic of discussion.

The paper co-led by Professor Ciaran Regan and Professor Dominic Walsh, published in Nature Medicine on 22 June 2008, describes how scientists used a combination of biochemical, behavioural and cell biology techniques to unlock the cascade of molecular events that lead to Alzheimer’s disease which affects more than 40,000 people in Ireland and some 29.8 million people worldwide.

According to the Thompson Reuters Essential Science Indicators website which publishes the data: “Generally, papers reach their citation peak two, three, or even four years after publication. A small group of papers, however, is recognized very soon after publication, reflected by rapid and significant numbers of citations. These papers are often key papers in their fields. We use a special filter to detect such Hot Papers. This involves looking at recently published papers and unusual citation activity in a current time period.”
“We measure age for hot papers in two-month periods rather than years, and we scan only those papers published in the last two years to see if they are receiving more citations than the norm.”

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