Is it for real? Evaluating authenticity of musical pitch-space synesthesia.

In spatial-sequence synesthesia, ordinal sequences are visualized in explicit spatial locations. We examined a recently documented subtype in which musical notes are represented in spatial configurations, to verify consistency and automaticity of musical pitch-space (M-S) synesthesia. An M-S synesthete performed a mapping pre-task (Exp. 1) used to indicate the locations of 7 auditory or visually presented notes, in 2 sessions a month apart. Results revealed strong correlations between sessions, suggesting the synesthete's musical forms were consistent over time. Experiment 2 assessed automaticity of M-S synesthesia. The same synesthete and matched controls preformed a spatial Stroop-like task. Participants were presented with an auditory or visual musical note and then had to reach for an asterisk (target) with a mouse cursor. The target appeared in a compatible or incompatible location (according to the synesthete's spatial representation). A compatibility effect was found for the synesthete but not for controls. The synesthete was significantly faster when the target appeared in compatible locations than in incompatible ones. Our findings show that for synesthetes, auditory and visually presented notes automatically trigger attention to specific spatial locations according to their specific M-S associations.

[The dynamic importance of proteinuria and arterial pressure for detecting late toxicosis in pregnant women with chronic kidney diseases and hypertension]. / Znachenie dinamiki proteinurii i arterial'nogo davleniia dlia vyiavleniia pozdnego toksikoza u beremennykh s khronicheskimi zabolevaniiami pochek i gipertonicheskoi bolezn'iu.

Time course of 187 pregnancies was followed up in 103 females with chronic renal diseases (CRD), 76 females with essential hypertension (EH) and 14 posteclampsia females. Three variants of arterial pressure (AP) and 5 types of proteinuria changes were recognized in CRD and EH patients. The pattern of these changes was compared to that in posteclampsia patients, the eclampsia being an absolute criterium of late toxicosis. It is shown that neither elevated AP and proteinuria nor their absolute values can serve reliable signs of late gestosis in CRD and EH patients. Only the trend in these parameters is significant. CRD and EH females with late gestosis exhibit rapidly growing proteinuria in line with the onset or exacerbation of EH. Retrospective analysis of the pregnancies has confirmed association of late gestosis in 15% of EH and 7% of chronic glomerulonephritis patients. These estimates are lower than commonly accepted. Early diagnosis of late gestosis in pregnant females with CRD and EH requires not only regular AP registration, but also dynamic, in some cases hourly, evaluation of proteinuria.