Neuroscience of synesthesia and cross-modal associations.

ABSTRACT

Synesthesia is a condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality causes unusual experiences in a different, unstimulated modality. Recent findings suggest that research on synesthesia offers a unique opportunity to study the neural basis of subjective experiences in healthy and pathological brains. This review summarizes and reflects current knowledge concerning synesthesia in its various aspects, including its cognitive, neural, and behavioral aspects. In this context, recent data suggest new connections between specific conditions related to synesthesic mechanisms and association processes linked to construction of synesthetic cross-modal metaphors that may play a role in psychopathological thinking and imagination.