Synesthesia extra connections in the brain

• April 27, 2024

The synesthesia It occurs in 2% of the population worldwide. This condition is characterized because there are additional connections between the parts of the brain related to individual senses .

Experience varies, but the most common is when numbers , letters , sounds and even faces seem to have associated colors that most people do not see.

In this regard, the expert in synesthesia V.S. Ramachandran , from the University of California at San Diego, presented several findings to advance the treatment of this brain disorder.

Ramachandran, indicated that people with synesthesia , they have in hippocampus , a region essential brain for the memory , extra connections . In contrast, sensory areas of the brain They show greater connectivity between people who really believe they see colors in numbers.

This study also found that people with synesthesia may have more white matter, indicating greater connectivity in the convolution fusiform, an area of brain that processes shapes, colors and meanings:

"The best thing that can happen to you in neuroscience is having a strange and extraordinary psychological phenomenon and being able to catalog it in terms of connections in the brain, based on the genes," said Ramachandran.

The research presented by David Brang at the University of California, San Diego, suggests that the brains of people with synesthesia It uses the greatest connectivity to transfer information from one area to another.

Ramachandran and his colleagues also identified a gene that appears to be involved in the condition. Although the synesthesia it does not necessarily make people more artistic, it does seem to have more presence among creative people, for example, the writer Vladimir Nabokov, the physicist Richard Feynman and the composer Franz Liszt.

Ramachandran's theory is that, genetically, the synesthesia has persisted in humans through the centuries for its association with creativity .