RE: Synesthesia

4 Key Questions: Is synesthesia real? Is this a genuine sensory phenomenon or a cognitive function?

What are the precise brain mechanisms?

Whats the big deal??

Synesthesia
Francis Galton - 19th Century

Definition: A sensory stimulus that is generally presented through one modality, spontaneously evokes a sensation experienced in an unrelated modality. Literally, a blending of the senses.
E.g: Individual may experience a specific color or hue for every given grapheme - 2 is yellow or 5 is orange. Really Numbers and Colors? Seems kind of crazy

Used to be regarded as rare Recent estimates - 4% of the population. 1 in 200 individuals Most common - grapheme-color Specificity of colors remains stable over time with any given individual. But the same grapheme doesnt necessarily evoke the same color in different people. Condition is hereditary. Recent work suggest a genetic basis. Mutated gene identified at HTR2-a on chromosome 13q14.

Physiological Basis

Neo-Natal Hypothesis
Fetal brain, neurally, wholly connected has over 2million synapses.

Eventually, pruned away to create inhibitory pathway. Pruning gene creates the adult modulated brain. Mutation of deleterious pruning gene causes a defective function. Synesthesia differs from most other neuropsychological conditions: positive system defined by the presence of a trait rather than the absence of a function, as in amnesia.

Look at this number:

Neural processing
Cross-Wiring

Theory: Looking at the number your brain activated areas of V1 and V8 for number recognition. The crosswired pathways of a synesthete activated V1 and V8 (purple) too, but also activates at V4 (blue).

FMRi studies showed activation of

the area for graphemes, colors, and binding in the synesthetes.

PLET Studies: time course study.

Areas of processing at the fusiform gyrus

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI)

Greater BOLD signal (blue) as well as greater anisotropy (yellow) underlie synesthetic experiences in color-grapheme Activation of both areas converges synesthesia.

Increased brain activation and increased anisotropy in the inferior temporal cortex in grapheme-color synesthetes.

In a higher pathway of binding to form perception.

Biochemical Properties
People who use LSD experience trips that parallel synesthetic experiences.

LSD mechanism of action is at 5HT-2a receptor.

Researchers found that synesthetes who took Prozac (SSRI) reported loosing their synesthetic abilities. Prozac down regulates 5HT-2a function by way of 5HT-1a up regulation. When users stopped taking the Prozac, synesthetic experiences returned.

Evidence that it is a sensory process

Are individuals making it up?

Synesthesia is stable (has test/re-test reliability)

Is it an early sensory process or a high level cognitive process

such as memory association?

Like fingerpainting or fridge magnets

Contrast Experiment: Color luminance contrast of the grapheme is reduced, the perceived saturation of the color decreases.
As it does with non-synesthetes, suggesting it is a sensory process.

Evoked color leads to texture segregation in grouping experiment.

On average synesthetes took 6 secs(+/- 3s) to ID the shape. Control subjects averaged 16 secs (+/-4s).

Top-down and contextual effects

Synesthesia can be influenced by top-down processing Evoked color for 5 initially.

Attentional focus changes colors to see arranged 2s.

Additional proof for sensory processing not cognitive.

An interesting case
A subject who had an extreme form of colorblindness (lacked a large complement of cones in her eyes) reported seeing martian colors that she did not observe in the physical world. Problem is with the retina, but the V4 color area is still intact. So she could still have the cross activation of the graphemecolor pathway.

Speed Congruency Test

2 Types of grapheme-color synesthete Higher synesthetes And Lower synesthetes

Lower synesthetes Roman numerals (E.g V or VI) Are ineffective at evoking colour Visual appearance of the numeral is critical Not the abstract idea of number Higher synesthetes Perceive color with more abstract numerical concepts Color triggered by graphemes Abstract idea of numerical sequence (days of the week or months of the year) Calendar synesthetes Cross-wiring occurs higher up in the vicinity of the angular gyrus at the TPO junction.

Whats the big deal?

Emergence of synesthesia
Better diagnostics Better understanding Less fear of persecution Synesthesia gene has a hidden agenda?

Evolution of the human brain!

EVO into Homo sapiens was through language as an adaptive response leading to development of the neocortex. Language is learned through auditory and visual cues, so could grapheme-color synesthesia be an evolutionary adaptation to technological advancement?

We are all a bit synesthetic

Months associated with the time of year? June and July are summer months equals warmer colors. Unconscious fusion of senses in our mind creates sensory perception changes influencing behaviors.

Who is Kiki and who is Bouba? These figures demonstrate that humans do not associate shapes to images in an arbitrary manner.

Almost 100% of the interviewed participants related kiki sound with the left figure and the bouba sound with the right figure.