Abstract: Objective To explore the correlation of cognitive impairment and areas of middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory infarction.Methods The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was used to evaluate neuropsychological statuses in the patients who developed first-time acute cerebral infarction for 2 weeks. MoCA scores and sub-scores were recorded. 132 patients were selected with MCA occlusion,scores of MoCA were more than 15, and cognitive impairment in at least one domain, and then subgrouped by infarction site. The correlation between the results of neuropsychological cognitive assessment and the sites of infarction was analyzed. Results MCA occlusion was correlated with the impairments of visual spatial/executive, attention, language and memory (B=-1.875~-1.094, P<0.05). Infarction in frontal lobe was correlated with the impairments of visual spatial/executive, attention, abstract and memory (B=-1.760~-1.329, P<0.05),temporal lobe with visual spatial/executive and memory impairment (B=-1.849~-1.735, P<0.05), parietal lobe with visual spatial/executive, attention and memory impairment (B=-1.695~-1.482, P<0.05), basal ganglia with visual spatial/executive, attention, language and memory impairment (B=-1.932~-1.041, P<0.01). Conclusion The characteristics of impairment in cognitive function is different with infarction sites in MCA territory.

Key words: ischemic stroke, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, cognitive impairment