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Abstract #4468

fMRI Study of Sound-Color Synesthesia

Jianli Wang1, Melissa Robinson-Long2, Khristy Thompson3, Paul J. Eslinger2,4, Catherine Lemley5

1Radiology, Penn State University College of Medcine, Hershey, PA, United States; 2Neurology, Penn State University College of Medcine, Hershey, PA, United States; 3Biology, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, United States; 4Neural and Behavioral Sciences, Penn State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, United States; 5Psychology, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, United States


Synesthesia is a condition that stimulation of one sensory modality will automatically trigger another un-stimulated perception modality. Here we reported the first fMRI study on sound-color synesthesia. The result shows that color center, angular gyrus and superior parietal cortex are involved in some sound-color photisms. Background noise control is critical in the study of sound-color synesthesia using fMRI. Our observation suggests that there may be different levels or subcategories of sound-color synesthesia and attention distraction may be an effective method for defining subcategories of this synesthesia.

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