Obesity is a global epidemic and is associated with cognitive impairment and dementia. It remains unknown whether weight loss interventions, such as bariatric surgery, can mitigate cognitive impairment.

We aimed to determine the effect of surgical weight loss on cognition in individuals with class II/III obesity.

We performed a prospective cohort study of participants who underwent bariatric surgery. At baseline and two years following surgery, participants completed metabolic risk factor and neuropsychological assessments.

Participants were enrolled from an academic suburban bariatric surgery clinic.

There were 113 participants who completed baseline assessments and 87 completed two-year follow-up assessments (66 in-person and 21 virtual) after bariatric surgery. The mean (SD) age was 46.8 (12.5) years and 64 (73.6%) were female.

Bariatric surgery. There were 77 (88.5%) participants that underwent sleeve gastrectomy and 10 (11.5%) that underwent gastric bypass surgery.

Cognition was assessed using the NIH toolbox cognitive battery (NIHTB-CB) and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT). The primary outcome was the change in NIHTB-CB fluid composite score before and after surgery.

The primary outcome, NIHTB-CB composite score, was stable following bariatric surgery (−0.4 (13.9), p=0.81,n=66). Among secondary outcomes, the NIHTB-CB dimensional card sorting test (executive function assessment), improved (+6.5 (19.9), p=0.01, n=66) while the Rey AVLT delayed recall test (memory assessment) declined (−0.24 (0.83), p=0.01, n=87) following surgery. Improvements to metabolic risk factors and diabetes complications were not associated with improvements to NIHTB-CB composite score. The other 4 NIHTB-CB subtests and Rey AVLT assessments of auditory learning and recognition were stable at follow-up.

Following bariatric surgery, the age-adjusted composite cognitive outcome did not change, but an executive subtest score improved. These results suggest that bariatric surgery may mitigate the natural history of cognitive decline in individuals with obesity, which is expected to be faster than normal aging, but confirmatory randomized controlled trials are needed. The decline in delayed recall also warrants further studies to determine potential differential effects on cognitive subtests.