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

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are strongly associated with cognitive decline and dementia, but whether asymptomatic individuals with moderate-to-severe WMHs (msWMHs) are truly cognitively intact, particularly in visual short-term memory (VSTM), remains unclear.

Methods

Electroencephalography and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was obtained from 45 msWMH patients and 38 normal controls during an occluded-face delay-matching task.

Results

Individuals with msWMH showed systematic deficits in face-memory processing across encoding, maintenance, and retrieval, accompanied by reduced theta power and synchronization, altered alpha power, and disrupted theta-gamma coupling. DTI further revealed microstructural damage, particularly in the inferior fronto-occ

SUBMITTER: Li A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12778417 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature