Silent yet impaired: Hidden memory processing deficits in asymptomatic individuals with moderate‐to‐severe white matter hyperintensities

Asymptomatic individuals with moderate-to-severe white matter hyperintensities (msWMHs) already show visual short-term memory (VSTM) deficits. Electroencephalography revealed abnormal neural oscillations during encoding, maintenance, and retrieval stages. Damage to the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) affects cognition via theta oscillations. Theta activity mediates structure - function coupling and may serve as a preclinical intervention target.