Although the human hippocampus is necessary for long-term memory, controversial findings suggest that it may also support short-term memory in the service of guiding effective behaviors during learning. We tested the counterintuitive theory that the hippocampus contributes to long-term memory through remarkably short-term processing, as reflected in eye movements during scene encoding. While viewing scenes for the first time, short-term retrieval operative within the episode over only hundreds of milliseconds was indicated by a specific eye-movement pattern, which was effective in that it enhanced spatiotemporal memory formation. This viewing pattern was predicted by hippocampal theta oscillations recorded from depth electrodes and by shifts toward top-down influence of hippocampal theta on activity within visual perception and attention networks. The hippocampus thus supports short-term memory processing that coordinates behavior in the service of effective spatiotemporal learning.

尽管人类海马体是长期记忆所必需的，但有争议的研究结果表明，它也可能支持短期记忆，以指导学习期间的有效行为。我们测试了一个违反直觉的理论，即海马体通过显着的短期处理来促进长期记忆，这反映在场景编码期间的眼球运动中。在第一次观看场景时，特定的眼球运动模式表明了该剧集中仅数百毫秒的短期检索操作，该模式有效地增强了时空记忆的形成。这种观察模式是通过从深度电极记录的海马θ振荡以及海马θ对视觉感知和注意力网络内活动的自上而下影响来预测的。