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Neurophysiological Aspects of Synesthetic Experience

Received September 9, 1997; revised January 7, 1998; accepted February 18, 1998. From the Department of Neurology and Clinical Psychiatry, Medical School, Hannover, Germany; and the Department of Cognitive Science, University of California–San Diego. Address correspondence to Dr. Münte, Department of Neurology, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, 30623 Hannover, Germany. e-mail: muente.thomas{at}mh-hannover.de

Synesthesia is a perceptual condition in which stimulation in one sensory modality elicits a concurrent sensation in another. The authors studied possible electrophysiological correlates of synesthetic experience in 17 subjects claiming to continuously experience chromatic-graphemical synesthesia and a matched control group. Subjects had to respond to one of four numbers and one of six letters by pressing a button. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from multiple scalp sites. Most synesthetic subjects reported strong synesthetic perceptions during the experiment. The ERPs of both groups showed a distinct P300 component when subjects encountered the assigned target number or letter. Synesthetic subjects had significantly and clearly more positive waveform over frontal and prefrontal scalp regions than control subjects for target and nontarget stimuli. This electrophysiological marker is discussed in terms of cortical inhibition in synesthetic subjects and the role of prefrontal regions in multisensory integration.

Key Words: Synesthesia • Event-related Potentials • Prefrontal Cortex

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