MeSH Terms for Advanced PubMed Searches
MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) terms are controlled medical terms assigned by the U.S. National Library of Medicine to categorize publications based on content and overall health-related information. They are a set of standardized words which are used to describe a particular medical condition or concept. For example, the search word “dementia” is categorized under the broader “Neurocognitive Disorders” category which also includes similar terms such as “delirium,” “mental disorders,” “nonpsychotic organ brain syndrome,” “psychoses,” etc.
To look up a specific MeSH term, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides a search page here. Simply typing a few keywords as part of the “Main Heading” or by searching in all “Free Text Fields” should help you quickly navigate to the relevant word or category of interest.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) PubMed database documents millions of scientific publications from journals and institutes across the globe, and it allows for advanced searches using specific filter codes. To search using these filters, simply add the code that applies to the filter of interest immediately following the search term (e.g. [1AU] for first author, [TA] for journal, [DP] for publication date, etc.). For more information on how to search PubMed using these advanced filters, see Advanced Searches on PubMed.
To gather a list of articles on Pubmed, simply search for the specific MeSH term that describes your area of interest, then combine this term with the appropriate PubMed advanced search filter. For example, in order to search for publications that are related to “neurocognitive disorders,” you would simply enter the term followed by the advanced filter code for MeSH terms - [MH].
Example search query: “neurocognitive disorders”[MH]
Searching for the specific string above would return publication results that have been categorized under this specific medical subject heading. This helps to quickly narrow down the publications that are directly relevant to your search.
To combine multiple searches, you can use the OR keyword. For example, to broaden your search to include more neurological disorders, you could either select a MeSH term that is higher up in the tree (“Mental Disorders”) which would return results for all sub-categories, or you could combine specific sub-categories.
Example search query: “neurocognitive disorders”[MH] OR “neurodevelopmental disorders”[MH]
This would return a list of citations from either one of the categories above.
In addition to the general MeSH heading filter [MH], there are several sub-filters that can also be applied that are specific to MeSH advanced searches.
- MeSH Date [MHDA] - the date the publication was added to the MeSH sub-category. The format is YYYY/MM/DD[MHDA]. The month and day are optional. A date range can also be specified by using a colon in between the from and to dates: YYYY/MM:YYYY/MM[MHDA].
- MeSH Major Topic [MAJR] - articles categorized with a MeSH heading as a major topic.
- MeSH Subheadings [SH] - subheadings that allows for even more specific information to be searched for within a MeSH term category.
- MeSH Terms [MH] - controlled medical vocabulary/term used to categorize publications.
Combining all of these filters can help you create powerful, targeted searches to quickly filter through the +30 million publications to date on PubMed.
For example, the search query: “neurocognitive disorders”[MH] AND genetics[SH] AND 2010/01:2018/05[MHDA]
Will return a list of results from PubMed including citations from Jan 2010 to May 2018 for the medical term “neurocognitive disorders”, specifically with a genetic focus.
Including MeSH terms as part of your Pubmed search criteria can help to quickly narrow down your list of results to a specific medical category. If you’re gathering lead lists in a specific life science category, knowing which MeSH terms to use will help narrow down your search results.