Grapheme-color synesthetes show peculiarities in their emotional brain: cortical and subcortical evidence from VBM analysis of 3D-T1 and DTI data

Helena Melero, Ángel Peña-Melián, Marcos Ríos-Lago, Gonzalo Pajares, Juan Antonio Hernández-Tamames, Juan Álvarez-Linera

Grapheme-color synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which viewing achromatic letters/numbers leads to automatic and involuntary color experiences. In this study, voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed on T1 images and fractional anisotropy measures to examine the whole brain in associator grapheme-color synesthetes. These analyses provide new evidence of variations in emotional areas (both at the cortical and subcortical levels), findings that help understand the emotional component as a relevant aspect of the synesthetic experience. Additionally, this study replicates previous findings in the left intraparietal sulcus and, for the first time, reports the existence of anatomical differences in subcortical gray nuclei of developmental grapheme-color synesthetes, providing a link between acquired and developmental synesthesia. This empirical evidence, which goes beyond modality-specific areas, could lead to a better understanding of grapheme-color synesthesia as well as of other modalities of the phenomenon.