NEW YORK: In a new study of German heart patients, people who had invasive bypass surgery and those who underwent less-invasive stent placement showed declines in thinking and memory skills a few months after the procedures.

Doctors have long been concerned about cognitive decline in patients who undergo coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) because of blocked arteries, and indeed, memory deficits were more significant after those procedures than after stenting.

Still, the findings don't prove it's the procedures themselves that cause memory decline - it could just be that plaque buildup in blood vessels in both the heart and the brain is causing a variety of problems in the same patients. (Reuters)