Synaesthesia sufferer loses ability to HEAR colours which could present new treatments

For one in 2,000 folks, pondering of a quantity would possibly set off a selected color, or listening to a sound may conjure up a selected style.

Synaesthesia is a situation that hyperlinks senses, however precisely what causes it isn't effectively understood.

Now two folks with this situation are serving to researchers perceive extra about it - together with a girl who was struck by lightning and misplaced her synaesthesia.

Researchers have been finding out a girl they check with as 'AB'. When she was youthful, a sequence of unlucky incidents, together with a lightning strike, fully stopped her synaesthesia

THE PARTICIPANTS' STORIES 

Two sufferers studied by researchers at Trinity School, Dublin have each had uncommon experiences with synaesthesia.

The primary, known as 'AB ', sees colors when she hears music, with the shade relying on the amount or instrument.

However when she was youthful, a sequence of unlucky incidents, together with a lightning strike, fully stopped her synaesthesia. 

Treatment to deal with migraines, meningitis and a head damage brought on by being hit by lightning brought about AB's synaesthesia to stop. Nevertheless, it rapidly returned. 

 The researchers additionally reported a person, CD, who sees colors when he talks to folks or listens to music.

CD additionally reported shedding his synaesthesia when he began taking an antidepressant that will increase serotonin ranges within the mind.

Through the time he took the antidepressant, CD misplaced his synaesthesia,  nevertheless it got here again as soon as he stopped taking the tablets.

In June 2014, when she was 20, a affected person, known as 'AB ' was struck by lightning.

Up till this level, she would see colors when she heard music, a type of synaethsesia, with the shade relying on the amount or instrument

Regular color experiences have been primarily abolished after her lightning strike, although she did expertise 'an terrible lot of white' on account of a ringing in her ears, and later developed pins and needles, which she described as seeing white flashes in her head.

She suffered quite a few panic assaults throughout this time and describes uncharacteristic synaesthetic experiences previous them, together with perceptions of intense, unusual colors, largely golds and silvers, which she described as presumably 'not even actual colors'.

Following the incident, AB was prescribed Xanax (Alprazolam) for one month. 

This brought about a brief muting of her colors for each music and folks, however by July of that yr that they had partially returned.

'Synaesthesia is a innocent perceptual situation is which the stimulation of 1 sense triggers experiences in one other sense,' says neuroscientist David Eagleman.

'For instance, in a synaesthete, listening to music would possibly trigger a synaesthete to expertise colors or textures.

'Or a sound would possibly set off a style, or the idea of a weekday might set off a color.'

Many individuals expertise this phenomenon to various levels - some may affiliate days of the week with a sure color, whereas others may hear a tune and style completely different flavours.

However two sufferers studied by researchers at Trinity School, Dublin have each had uncommon experiences with synaesthesia.

However when she was youthful, a sequence of unlucky incidents, together with a lightning strike, fully stopped her synaesthesia. 

Treatment to deal with migraines, meningitis and a head damage brought on by being hit by lightning brought about AB's synaesthesia to stop.

Nevertheless, it rapidly returned. 

The researchers additionally reported a person, CD, who sees colors when he talks to folks or listens to music.

Synaesthesia is a innocent perceptual situation is which the stimulation of 1 sense triggers experiences in one other sense.  Many individuals expertise this phenomenon to various levels - some may affiliate letters or numbers with a sure color

CD additionally reported shedding his synaesthesia when he began taking an antidepressant that will increase serotonin ranges within the mind.

Through the time he took the antidepressant, CD misplaced his synaesthesia,  nevertheless it got here again as soon as he stopped taking the tablets.

'The phenomenological expertise of synaesthesia can, thus, like most acutely aware experiences, be modulated by pharmacologically numerous drugs or head damage,' the authors wrote within the examine. 

Nevertheless it appears there's something inflicting the situation to return.

'The underlying neural substrates mediating particular synaesthetic pairings seem remarkably 'hard-wired' and might persist over very lengthy intervals even beneath circumstances that alter or fully suppress the acutely aware synaesthetic expertise itself' the authors added.

'That is proof that there are most likely a number of alternative ways to expertise synaesthesia, which is why folks expertise differing types,' Clare Jonas on the College of East London instructed New Scientist. 

WHAT IS CHROMESTHESIA? 

Chromesthesia is a type of sound-to-colour synesthesia which causes folks to involuntarily see colors after they hear music.

Folks with chromesthesia are consciously conscious of their color associations, and curiously, many develop up assuming each physique else has the identical response.  

Some chromesthetes, referred to as 'projectors', see the colors as if they're projected into the exterior world, relatively than current inside their heads.

Different chromesthetes, referred to as 'associators', expertise the colors inside their heads relatively than within the exterior world.

Well-known examples embody Pharrell Williams, Billy Joel and Vincent Van Gogh. 

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