Objective To explore the correlation between cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) and cognitive function after cerebral infarction.

Methods Based on the results of susceptibility imaging of 3.0 T cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 119 hospitalized patients with acute primary cerebral infarction in non-critical regions in the Department of Neurology of Suzhou Municipal Hospital from April 2018 to July 2020 were selected, and the basic materials such as CMBs were collected. According to the number of CMBs lesions, the patients were divided into groups with grade 0 (no CMBs), grade 1 (1 lesion to 5 lesions of CMBs), and grade 2 (≥ 6 lesions of CMBs). According to the location of CMBs, the patients were divided into pure cerebral lobe group, pure deep group and mixed group. After 3 months, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was used to evaluate the cognitive function of the patients; the differences in cognitive function among different degrees of CMBs groups as well as between pure cerebral lobe group and pure deep group were compared; the differences in various factors between the cognitive impairment group and the cognitive normal group were compared, and the influencing factors of cognitive impairment in patients with cerebral infarction in non-critical regions were further analyzed.

Results The total score of MoCA, the scores in the domains of visuospatial and executive function as well as and attention in CMBs patients with grade 0, grade 1 and grade 2 decreased successively, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.001). The total score of MoCA and the scores in the domain of visuospatial and executive function in the pure cerebral lobe group were significantly lower than those in the pure deep group (P=0.014, 0.007). Compared with the cognitive normal group, the cognitive impairment group had older age, shorter education time, higher severity degree of leukopenia (LA), higher positivity rate of CMBs, more CMBs lesions, and higher ratio of CMBs in cerebral lobes, and all the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Using cognitive impairment as the dependent variable, the significant indicators in univariate analysis were included in multivariate analysis, and the results showed that severity of LA (OR=2.050, P=0.005), positive CMBs (OR=34.476, P=0.008) and the number of CMBs lesions (OR=1.594, P=0.045) were independent influencing factors of cognitive function in patients with cerebral infarction in non-critical regions.

Conclusion CMBs and its severity are closely related to cognitive function in patients with cerebral infarction in non-critical regions.