Atrial fibrillation is considered to be the most common arrhythmia in the clinic, and it gradually increases with age. In recent years, there has been increasing evidence that atrial fibrillation may exacerbate the progression of cognitive dysfunction. The current guidelines recommend ablation for drug-refractory atrial fibrillation. We aimed to prospectively analyze changes in cognitive function in patients with atrial fibrillation following treatment using different ablation methods. A total of 139 patients, with non-valvular atrial fibrillation, were included in the study. The patients were divided into the drug therapy (n = 41) and catheter ablation (n = 98) groups, with the catheter ablation group further subdivided into radiofrequency ablation (n = 68) and cryoballoon (CY) ablation (n = 30). We evaluated cognitive function at baseline, 3- and 12-months follow-up using the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-modified (TICS-m) test, then analyzed differences in cognitive function between the drug therapy and catheter ablation groups, to reveal the effect of the different ablation methods. We observed a significantly higher TICS-m score (39.56 ± 3.198) in the catheter ablation group at 12-month follow-up ( P < .001), than the drug treatment group was. Additionally, we found no statistically significant differences in TICS-m scores between the radiofrequency ablation and CY groups at 3- and 12-month postoperatively ( P > .05), although the two subgroups showed statistically significant cognitive function ( P < .001). Overall, these findings indicated that radiofrequency and CY ablation improve cognitive function in patients with atrial fibrillation.