Mirror Touch Synesthesia

The study of synesthesia has grown exponentially over the past few decades and as a result there is some level of ambiguity as to the scope of what defines it. Gail Martino and Lawrence Mark propose that synesthesia can be categorized into strong or weak. The former refers to those who experience “a vivid image in one sensory in response to stimulation in another”, whereas the latter is characterized as “cross-sensory correspondence[s] expressed through language, perceptual similarity and perceptual interactions during information processing” (Martino and Marks, 2001). This view implies that even the subtlest forms of cross-modal interactions that take place in the individual, albeit associating certain sounds to sight, deserve some

Imagine if you had a condition that made you have a different perception on the world than others. How would you react emotionally if you tasted something each time you heard a certain word or even saw colors when you listened to music? “Synesthesia; the neurological phenomenon that couples two or more senses in 4% of the population,” (Cytowic, Richard) can alter your senses to enhance another sense involuntarily (Dickinson, Annie). This means that two of the five senses would associate with each other to be used in sync. The five senses, sight, smell, sound, taste and touch can be used, however in this case, the senses sight and sound are combined and this is called chromesthesia. Synesthetes, those who have chromesthesia, will hear sounds

Synesthesia is a neurologically induced phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sense causes an individual to also experience a reaction from another sense. For example, a person affected by the aforementioned condition might experience tactile information when they see other people receiving it firsthand or they might associate certain numbers with a particular smell, color, or taste. Some recent work done by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and coworkers (2005) show us that a phenomenon known more specifically as mirror-touch synesthesia is heavily influenced by the activity of mirror neurons that fire not only when a certain stimulus is perceived by an individual but also when they see another individual perform the action too.

Even though I am talking about Pain Synesthesia, I still need to inform you about all the other ways you can experience Synesthesia. Who knows you might be experiencing Synesthesia without even knowing. Regular Synesthesia can be defined as a person who can have amazing sensory skills such as being able to taste color or numbers. This definitely is a really unique skill that a person has, to be able to envision the taste of a color or number. Reason being is that usually if someone were to ask you to read a color or number, you wouldn’t be able to taste it just because to you, its just a pigment or a term used in math but for others, it something they taste. I don’t have those awesome abilities to taste numbers or colors but I can taste food and objects just by looking or smelling

Synesthesia is a condition in which a typical sensory experience is stimulated and accompanied by an additional sensory experience. Over sixty variations of the condition are documented, with an estimated 4.4% of the population experiencing at least one form of it. Each person’s sensory associations are unique, even within one type of synesthesia, and the associations are typically stable through time (Dutton, 2015).

In the late 1990’s, researchers from the University of California, San Diego wanted to know if there was connection between mirror neurons and autism.1 They hypothesized that since these neurons play a role in a person’s ability to feel empathy, they found it sensible to think it might be the cause of autistic symptoms.1 Autism is a disorder found among children where areas of the brain fail to work thus makes it difficult for individuals to communicate.4

The human Mirror Neuron System (hMNS) implicates in the emotional interpersonal cognition. This implication is considered to be one characteristic feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Thus, highlighting the interaction between motor control, empathy, imitative behaviors, and their consequences on social decision making will enable to further explore potential ASDs mechanisms. In another word, how alterations in the neural circuit of motor control impairment could contribute to the lack of imitation, empathy which disturbs social decision making in patients with ASDs. Despite the recent achievements in the field, there are many obstacles in understanding the underlying neural pathways that drive these mechanisms in ASDs. Therefore, we

The quality that is unique to mirror neurons is that the observation of motion fires these motor neurons as if the individual was performing that same motion him/herself. The larger, groundbreaking implication within this finding is that the actions of others influence not only neurons that fire when associated with an ‘other’ but fire a set of neurons that are tied specifically to a ‘self’ distinction. Empathy, as a concept, can be loosely defined as an experience or moment when the ‘self’ and ‘other’ lines are blurred or discarded in such a way that the individual can intimately and personally relate to, or, has the capacity to know an experience of the ‘other’. What better way is there to know another’s experience than to have action-oriented, experiential neurons fire in a similar, if not the same, pattern as the other. Research in the area of vicarious neuronal activation has quickly progressed, yet the limits to these neuronal mechanisms and pathways are still being discovered. In the next section, the progression of the understanding of mirror neurons will be examined, followed by a discussion of the limits of the findings in the context of empathy and areas for future

In an online article in The Huffington Post written by Marianne Kuzujanakis, a rare phenomenon involving perception called synesthesia is discussed. Synesthesia is an occurrence in which senses are connected or shared, such as seeing a color when thinking of a number or tasting certain words. It is often seen in children, whose brains are still pruning and connections are plentiful, and creative people such as writers, artists and other performers (Kuzujanakis, 2015). This suggests more interconnections {{Are you referring to synaptic connections here? neural connections? I'm not familiar with this term}} utilized in the brain that allow certain stimuli to trigger multiple areas in response involving our other senses. Perception is so significant in this because one person looks at a stimulus, and their brain’s responses have the capability of being a completely unique

Mirror neurons have been found to play a role in love and intimacy, in addition to feelings of empathy and altruism. These neurons not only help us to understand others, but they may even synchronize our behaviors and emotions with other people, thus influencing social connections and interactions between individuals. Mirror neurons are activated when we perform actions similar to other people, and when we observe or hear others performing acts similarly to us. Mirror neurons do not only respond directly to muscle movements, but also to the context of the situation. For example, if while watching a movie the actress reaches her hand for an object, our “grasping” mirror neurons will fire, even if the full action is out of view and cut off by

My article of choice was a quite interesting one, the name of this article was, What is Synesthesia? By Anna Medaris Miller a staff writer for the U.S. News. Synesthesia has been a more common thing today but only very few in the world population have it. According to researchers it isn’t considered a disease or a mental issue as it doesn’t strike any harm and it’s simply a different way someone’s perception for colors and symbols/letters/numbers became combined and correlated within each other. This is commonly known as joint senses.

Once genetic contenders have been identified for cross-activation and disinhibited feedback models, more studies can be done to determine the molecular pathways these genes regulate. For example, animal genetic knock-out or knock-in models can be created to potentially determine the effect of a gene during development. These studies are needed to support or discredit, the pruning hypothesis and its suggested underlying molecular causes: the immune-theory and serotonin-theory. This further research into the underlying causes and mechanism of synesthesia will lead to a better understanding of sensory system development. It will help identify how plasticity leads to subjective perception and what factors in development influence this. Lastly,

Mechanistic explanations have been plentiful throughout synesthesia's history. The notion of crossed wires turns up repeatedly. As early as 1704, Sir Isaac Newton struggled to

Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which one sense or part of the body is stimulated by another sense or part of the body. For example, certain sounds or visuals can stimulate and be related to colors, textures or smells. There are many types of synesthesia that has been identified and studied by researchers dating back to ancient Greece and classified in the early 19th century. In this paper, three types of synesthesia will be studied: grapheme/color synesthesia synesthesia, color/sound synesthesia and its subtype, color-music synesthesia. The article will review the procedures, methods, and results of each of these focal points to better understand the way the brain works with people who experience synesthesia. This article will reference and analyze research that has been conducted on synesthesia in the brain when stimulating two senses at once, the time course in neural activity of these senses, and patients with color-music synesthesia in the regards to the intensity of white matter in the brain. It will also focus on synesthesia and music and understanding the mechanisms in the brain that allow certain people to see colors when listening to or playing music. The purpose of this study is to compare the theories behind the development of synesthesia and apply them to recent findings and experiments. Future research will also be mentioned to further analyze the findings surrounding synesthetic phenomenons.

In terms of neuropsychological evidence, there is also support for the visual sensory system’s dominance over the auditory, olfactory, and tactile sensory systems. While other senses rely on relatively more simple processes to maintain the quality of the sense, how humans have come to see,