Neuronal correlates of colour-graphemic synaesthesia: a fMRI study.

Full Abstract

Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which specific events in one sensory modality induce experiences in another. In colour-graphemic synaesthesia, subjects report colour experiences induced by written letters. Our subjects displayed this type of synaesthesia, as verified by a test of the consistency of the perceptual associations over time, and had no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. We investigated the hypothesis that the synaesthetic colour experience is accompanied by an activation of the human colour area (V4/V8) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). With retinotopic and colour mapping we could confirm that colour stimuli specifically activate area V4/V8. For the study of colour-graphemic synaesthesia we used an AB boxcar design with blocks of letters that elicited a synaesthetic colour experience (condition A) alternating with blocks of letters that did not (condition B). In both hemispheres condition A led to a significantly higher activation of V4/V8 than condition B. These findings support the hypothesis that the grapheme-induced colour perception in synaesthesia is caused by an activation of the colour areas of the human visual cortex.

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Author information

Author/s: Sperling, Julia M (JM); Prvulovic, David (D); Linden, David E J (DE); Singer, Wolf (W); Stirn, Aglaja (A);

Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior (Cortex), published in Italy. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Feb; vol 42 (issue 2) : pp 295-303

Dates: Created 2006/05/10; Completed 2006/09/07; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 16683504, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Association
Attention - physiology
Brain Mapping
Color Perception - physiology
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Reading
Retina - physiology
Semantics
Statistics as Topic
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Pathways - physiology

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