Mind’s eye: widespread saccade-related evoked potentials support visual memory encoding in humans

Saccadic eye movements modulate medial temporal lobe (MTL) activity in primates, a region critical for memory, yet whether and how this saccadic modulation supports memory encoding in humans remains unknown. By combining eye tracking with intracranial local field potentials in humans performing memory tasks, we identified widespread cortical evoked potentials time-locked to saccades (saccade-related evoked potentials, SREPs) that could not be explained by oculomuscular artifacts or retinal input. SREPs emerge earliest and with the greatest amplitude in the lateral temporal cortex. Machine learning analysis revealed that pre-saccadic oscillation and SREPs predicted recognition memory but not saccade direction, suggesting that SREPs are distinct from corollary discharge. Frontoparietal SREPs, rather than those in MTL, best predict memory outcomes, and successful encoding is associated with earlier, more pronounced SREPs. This study extends the active sensing framework to human visual memory: saccades are accompanied by a structured cortical event that influences memory encoding.