Cognitive impairments associated with corpus callosum infarction: a ten cases study

The aim of this study was to determine whether the cognitive impairment is associated with corpus callosum infarctions. Ten corpus callosum infarction patients were enrolled in this study. Their emotions, cognitive and language abilities, memory, comprehensive perception were assessed using the Chinese version of following measures: Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), World Health Organization-University of California-Los Angeles Auditory Verbal Learning Test (WHO-UCLA AVLT), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Digit Span subtest and so on. The same measurements were performed on healthy control participants as contrast for analysis. Infarction most frequently occurred in the body and/or splenium of the corpus callosum. The scores of the most cognitive tests in the corpus callosum infarction patients were significantly worse than those of the control participants (P<0.05). Except for the naming ability, the patients showed significantly poorer performance at the overall level of MMSE than the controls did (P<0.05). Consistently, the results of MoCA suggested a significant reduction in visuospatial abilities of execution, orientation, attention, calculation, delayed memory, language, and repetition capabilities in the patients with respect to the control (P<0.05). In addition, the scores in the case group were significantly worse than those in the control group in the auditory word learning test, digital span and Rey complex figure test (P<0.05). Corpus callosum infarction can cause cognitive dysfunction, which poses obstacles to memory in the acute phase, accompanied by different degrees of decline in visuospatial abilities, attention and calculating abilities.