Synesthesia’s mysterious ‘mingling of the senses’ may result from hyperconnected neurons

[Guest Nicole]

When you hear a B-flat music note, do you see the color blue? Do the words in this sentence look red or green? If so, you may have synesthesia, a mysterious condition in which one sense consistently mingles with another. Now, for the first time, scientists have identified a handful of genes that might predispose people to synesthesia, offering a window to better understand disorders such as autism, which is also thought to involve abnormal brain connections.

“It’s very exciting,” says Romke Rouw, a cognitive psychologist who studies synesthesia at the University of Amsterdam but who wasn’t involved in the study. “It provides a fascinating suggestion of a link between particular genetic variations and hyperconnectivity in the synesthetic brain.”

For decades, many psychologists and neuroscientists were reluctant to research synesthesia. Some refused to acknowledge its existence, whereas others believed the phenomenon’s individual, subjective nature made it virtually impossible to study. But increasingly sophisticated survey methods have allowed scientists to confirm that some people—it’s unclear how many—do consistently and involuntarily experience this unusual condition.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/synesthesia-s-mysterious-mingling-senses-may-result-hyperconnected-neurons