Abstract:Objective To investigate the difference in cognitive function between patients with acute isolated brainstem stroke and normal controls, the influence of brainstem stroke on cognitive function, and injured cognitive domains.Methods A total of 29 patients with acute isolated brainstem stroke and 20 normal controls who met the inclusion criteria and were matched for sex, age, and education years were enrolled. The Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination Ⅲ (ACE-Ⅲ), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), symbol digit modalities test (SDMT), Wechsler digital span (DS) test, Trail Making Test (TMT), and Stroop Color-Word Test were used for assessment and the P300 event-related potential was also measured.Results The patients with brainstem stroke had significantly lower total scores of MoCA and ACE-Ⅲ scales than the control group (P=0.012 and P=0.004), with language function (P=0.024) and visuospatial function (P=0.004) as the major injured cognitive domains. The patients with brainstem stroke did not complete the SDMT, DS, TMT, and Stroop test well, and there were no significant differences in the results of these tests between the two groups (P>0.05). The results of P300 measurement showed that compared with the control group, the patients with brainstem stroke had a significantly reduced amplitude (P=0.022) and a significantly prolonged latency period (P=0.033). The ACE-Ⅲ score was positively correlated with of MoCA score (P<0.01) and negatively correlated with P300 latency (P=0.006).Conclusions Patients with acute isolated brainstem stroke have a certain degree of cognitive impairment, and attention, language function, and visuospatial function are major cognitive domains injured.