Synesthesia and genetic

According to Wikipedia , Synesthesia “is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.”

Scientists have done research on synesthesia to find if a gene was responsible for the phenomenon. According to a recent CNN’s story they found out the following :

Brain scans have shown that people with synesthesia seem to have “cross-wiring” between brain regions, said Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego.

“Nobody really had the evidence pinning it down to specific genes in specific chromosomes, and I’m delighted to hear somebody’s done that,” Ramachandran said.

“Cross-wiring” was shown in a study led by J.A. Nunn at Goldsmiths College, London, which found that the visual areas of the brain were activated in response to sound in people for whom sound triggers color.

Given that a normal infant’s brain has excess connections between brain regions, one hypothesis is that synesthesia results when the genes that “prune” these connections away are mutated, Ramachandran said. In other words, people with synesthesia may have brain connections that would normally disappear at an early age.

Continue to full story

A list of related entries: