Saccades are phase-locked to alpha oscillations in the occipital and medial temporal lobe during successful memory encoding

Tobias Staudigl; Elisabeth Hartl; Soheyl Noachtar; Christian F Doeller; Ole Jensen

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2003404

Saccades are phase-locked to alpha oscillations in the occipital and medial temporal lobe during successful memory encoding

PLoS Biol. 2017 Dec 21;15(12):e2003404. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003404. eCollection 2017 Dec.

Authors

Tobias Staudigl¹, Elisabeth Hartl², Soheyl Noachtar², Christian F Doeller^{1

3}, Ole Jensen⁴

Affiliations

¹ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
² Epilepsy Center, Department of Neurology, University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
³ Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, NTNU & St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim, Norway.
⁴ Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Efficient sampling of visual information requires a coordination of eye movements and ongoing brain oscillations. Using intracranial and magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings, we show that saccades are locked to the phase of visual alpha oscillations and that this coordination is related to successful mnemonic encoding of visual scenes. Furthermore, parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortex involvement in this coordination reflects effective vision-to-memory mapping, highlighting the importance of neural oscillations for the interaction between visual and memory domains.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Brain / physiology*
Brain Mapping
Eye Movements*
Humans
Magnetoencephalography
Memory
Saccades*
Visual Perception / physiology*

Grants and funding

The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits https://blog.medisin.ntnu.no/tag/egil-pauline-braathen-and-fred-kavli-centre-for-cortical-microcircuits/?lang=en. Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. James S. McDonnell Foundation Understanding Human Cognition Collaborative Award (grant number 220020448). Received by OJ. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. National Infrastructure scheme of the Research Council of Norway – NORBRAIN https://www.ntnu.edu/kavli/research/norbrain. Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Kavli Foundation, the Centre of Excellence scheme of the Research Council of Norway – Centre for Biology of Memory and Centre for Neural Computation https://www.forskningsradet.no/en/Funding/SFF/1253965012525. Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research https://www.nwo.nl/en (grant number NWO-MaGW 406-14-114). Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research https://www.nwo.nl/en (grant number NWO-Vidi 452-12-009). Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research https://www.nwo.nl/en (grant number NWO-MaGW 406-15-291). Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. Received by OJ. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/ (grant number 661373). Received by TS. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. European Research Council https://erc.europa.eu/ (grant number ERC-CoG GEOCOG 724836). Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. European Research Council https://erc.europa.eu/ (grant number ERC-StG RECONTEXT 261177). Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Kavli Foundation http://www.kavlifoundation.org/. Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research https://www.nwo.nl/en (grant number NWO-Gravitation 024-001-006). Received by CFD. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.