Our objective was to determine a correlation among serum levels of IL-6 and sIL6r and cognitive impairment after acute ischemic stroke

The role of inflammation in stroke prognosis has been well established for motor impairment, but less has been published regarding the mechanisms that lead to cognitive impairment after acute ischemic stroke and in particular the prodromic role of neuroinflammation levels

To assess inflammatory status, circulating levels of IL-6 and its soluble receptor (sIL-6R) were measured at admission (t₀), after treatment (t₁), and at hospital discharge (t₂). Cognitive impairment was evaluated through MOCA test three months after discharge.

Differences between subgroups were assessed by the non-parametric Mann Whitney U test as for quantitative data, whilst the Fisher-exact test was applied as for qualitative data

We included 26 individuals. The cohort was divided into two subgroups based on the standard MoCA score categorization: scores <26 were considered indicative of cognitive impairment, whereas scores ≥26 were considered within the normal range. No statistical differences were observed between the subgroups in terms of sex, core and penumbra volumes, treatment, stroke etiology, or stroke severity. Analysis of IL-6 levels revealed that patients with cognitive impairment had significantly higher values at all time points with respect to normal range of MoCA (t₀: p = 0.027; t₁: p<0.001; t₂: p <0.001). In particular, we observed that in the patients with suggestive cognitive impairment levels of IL-6 are higher at each time compared to the controls (MoCA ≥ 26) showing an increasing trend. The same analysis was conducted on sIL-6R, but no statistically significant differences were detected within subgroups over time

High levels of Interleukin-6 may be predictive of worse cognitive outcome after ischemic stroke. These results may lead the way for early treatment approaches in post-stroke cognitive impairment