Skip to main content

Synesthesia, Pseudo-Synesthesia, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Digestive Diseases and Sciences volume 57, pages 1629–1635 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Background and Aims

Synesthesia is a sensory disorder where the stimulation of one sensory modality can lead to a reaction in another which would not usually be expected to respond; for instance, someone might see a color on hearing a word such as a day of the week. Disordered perception of sensory information also appears to contribute to the pathophysiology of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The purpose of this exploratory study was to ascertain whether these two conditions might be linked in any way.

Methods

Two hundred consecutive IBS outpatients were screened for synesthesia and compared with 200 matched healthy volunteers (controls). Positive responders were tested for two types of synesthesia (grapheme–color and music–color/shape) using a questionnaire which was repeated after 3 months to test for reproducibility.

Results

Of the 200 IBS outpatients screened, 26 (13%) patients and six (3%) controls claimed to be synesthetic (P < 0.001). Reproducibility was more variable in IBS patients than controls but despite this variability, 15 (7.5%) patients compared with 5 (2.5%) controls had greater than 75% consistency (P = 0.036), and 19 (9.5%) patients and 6 (3%) controls had greater than 50% consistency (P = 0.012). A reproducibility of less than 50% was observed in seven (3.5%) patients and no controls (0%) (P = 0.015), and these individuals were classified as having pseudo-synesthesia.

Conclusion

IBS patients clearly differ from controls in terms of claiming to have synesthetic experiences. These results justify additional studies on the relationship between IBS and synesthesia to further understand the neural mechanisms underpinning these two conditions and to establish whether they may be linked.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

References

  1. Simner J. Defining synaesthesia. Br J Psychol. 2012;103:1–15

    Google Scholar 

  2. Eagleman DM. Synaesthesia. Br Med J. 2010;340:b4616.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hochel M, Milan EG. Synaesthesia: the existing state of affairs. Cogn Neuropsychol. 2008;25:93–117.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Mattingley JB. Attention, automaticity, and awareness in synesthesia. Ann NY Acad Sci. 2009;1156:141–167.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Steven MS, Blakemore C. Visual synaesthesia in the blind. Perception. 2004;33:855–868.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Baron-Cohen S, Wyke MA, Binnie C. Hearing words and seeing colours: an experimental investigation of a case of synaesthesia. Perception. 1987;16:761–767.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Pearce JM. Synaesthesia. Eur Neurol. 2007;57:120–124.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Larner AJ. A possible account of synaesthesia dating from the seventeenth century. J Hist Neurosci. 2006;15:245–249.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Galton F. Visualised numerals. Nature. 1880;21:252–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Galton F. Visualised numerals. Nature. 1880;21:494–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jewanski J, Day SA, Ward J. A colourful albino: the first documented case of synaesthesia, by Georg Tobias Ludwig Sachs in 1812. J Hist Neurosci. 2009;18:293–303.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Barnett KJ, Finucane C, Asher JE, et al. Familial patterns and the origins of individual differences in synaesthesia. Cognition. 2008;106:871–893.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Asher JE, Lamb JA, Brocklebank D, et al. A whole-genome scan and fine-mapping linkage study of auditory-visual synesthesia reveals evidence of linkage to chromosomes 2q24, 5q33, 6p12, and 12p12. Am J Hum Genet. 2009;84:279–285.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Mathewson I. Does a mutated x-linked dominant transcriptional repressor gene explain mirror writing ability and synaesthesia? Med Hypotheses. 2007;69:368–371.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Smilek D, Dixon MJ, Merikle PM. Synaesthesia: discordant male monozygotic twins. Neurocase. 2005;11:363–370.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Ward J, Simner J. Is synaesthesia an x-linked dominant trait with lethality in males? Perception. 2005;34:611–623.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Smilek D, Moffatt BA, Pasternak J, White BN, Dixon MJ, Merikle PM. Synaesthesia: a case study of discordant monozygotic twins. Neurocase. 2002;8:338–342.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Rich AN, Bradshaw JL, Mattingley JB. A systematic, large-scale study of synaesthesia: implications for the role of early experience in lexical-colour associations. Cognition. 2005;98:53–84.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Baron-Cohen S, Burt L, Smith-Laittan F, Harrison J, Bolton P. Synaesthesia: prevalence and familiarity. Perception. 1996;25:1073–1079.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Barnett KJ, Newell FN. Synaesthesia is associated with enhanced, self-rated visual imagery. Conscious Cogn. 2008;17:1032–1039.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Rothen N, Meier B. Higher prevalence of synaesthesia in art students. Perception. 2010;39:718–720.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Mulvenna CM. Synaesthesia, the arts and creativity: a neurological connection. Front Neurol Neurosci. 2007;22:206–222.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Sitton SC, Pierce ER. Synesthesia, creativity and puns. Psychol Rep. 2004;95:577–580.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Ward J, Thompson-Lake D, Ely R, Kaminski F. Synaesthesia, creativity and art: what is the link? Br J Psychol. 2008;99:127–141.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Yaro C, Ward J. Searching for Shereshevskii: what is superior about the memory of synaesthetes? Q J Exp Psychol (Colchester). 2007;60:681–695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Rothen N, Meier B. Grapheme-colour synaesthesia yields an ordinary rather than extraordinary memory advantage: evidence from a group study. Memory. 2010;18:258–264.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Hubbard EM. Neurophysiology of synesthesia. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2007;9:193–199.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Sagiv N, Ward J. Crossmodal interactions: lessons from synesthesia. Prog Brain Res. 2006;155:259–271.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Hubbard EM, Ramachandran VS. Neurocognitive mechanisms of synesthesia. Neuron. 2005;48:509–520.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Ramachandran VS, Hubbard EM. Psychophysical investigations into the neural basis of synaesthesia. Proc Biol Sci. 2001;268:979–983.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Grossenbacher PG, Lovelace CT. Mechanisms of synesthesia: cognitive and physiological constraints. Trends Cogn Sci. 2001;5:36–41.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Brang D, Hubbard EM, Coulson S, Huang M, Ramachandran VS. Magnetoencephalography reveals early activation of v4 in grapheme-colour synesthesia. Neuroimage. 2010;53:268–274.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. Rouw R, Scholte HS. Neural basis of individual differences in synesthetic experiences. J Neurosci. 2010;30:6205–6213.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Zayed N, Goodyear B, Smith M. Is undiagnosed synaesthesia a confounding factor in the interpretation of MRI images? Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2008;2008:5778–5781.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Cohen Kadosh R, Cohen Kadosh K, Henik A. The neuronal correlate of bidirectional synesthesia: a combined event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging study. J Cogn Neurosci. 2007;19:2050–2059.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  36. Rich AN, Williams MA, Puce A, et al. Neural correlates of imagined and synaesthetic colours. Neuropsychologia. 2006;44:2918–2925.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Sperling JM, Prvulovic D, Linden DE, Singer W, Stirn A. Neuronal correlates of colour-graphemic synaesthesia: a FMRI study. Cortex. 2006;42:295–303.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Nunn JA, Gregory LJ, Brammer M, et al. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of synesthesia: activation of v4/v8 by spoken words. Nat Neurosci. 2002;5:371–375.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  39. van Leeuwen TM, Petersson KM, Hagoort P. Synaesthetic colour in the brain: beyond colour areas. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of synaesthetes and matched controls. PLoS One. 2010;5:e12074.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Barnett KJ, Foxe JJ, Molholm S, et al. Differences in early sensory-perceptual processing in synesthesia: a visual evoked potential study. Neuroimage. 2008;43:605–613.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. Simner J, Mulvenna C, Sagiv N, et al. Synaesthesia: the prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences. Perception. 2006;35:1024–1033.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Asher JE, Aitken MR, Farooqi N, Kurmani S, Baron-Cohen S. Diagnosing and phenotyping visual synaesthesia: a preliminary evaluation of the revised test of genuineness (tog-r). Cortex. 2006;42:137–146.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Eagleman DM, Kagan AD, Nelson SS, Sagaram D, Sarma AK. A standardized test battery for the study of synesthesia. J Neurosci Methods. 2007;159:139–145.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. Azpiroz F, Bouin M, Camilleri M, et al. Mechanisms of hypersensitivity in IBS and functional disorders. Neurogastroenterol Motil. 2007;19:62–88.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Ritchie J. Pain from distension of the pelvic colon by inflating a balloon in the irritable colon syndrome. Gut. 1973;14:125–132.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  46. Mertz H, Naliboff B, Munakata J, Niazi N, Mayer EA. Altered rectal perception is a biological marker of patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Gastroenterology. 1995;109:40–52.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Francis CY, Houghton LA, Whorwell PJ. Enhanced sensitivity of the whole gut in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Gastroenterology. 1995;108:A601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Andresen V, Bach DR, Poellinger A, et al. Brain activation responses to subliminal or supraliminal rectal stimuli and to auditory stimuli in irritable bowel syndrome. Neurogastroenterol Motil. 2005;17:827–837.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  49. Berman SM, Naliboff BD, Chang L, et al. Enhanced preattentive central nervous system reactivity in irritable bowel syndrome. Am J Gastroenterol. 2002;97:2791–2797.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Blomhoff S, Jacobsen MB, Spetalen S, Dahm A, Malt UF. Perceptual hyperreactivity to auditory stimuli in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Scand J Gastroenterol. 2000;35:583–589.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  51. Barton A, Pal B, Whorwell PJ, Marshall D. Increased prevalence of sicca complex and fibromyalgia in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Am J Gastroenterol. 1999;94:1898–1901.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  52. Naliboff BD, Berman S, Suyenobu B, et al. Longitudinal change in perceptual and brain activation response to visceral stimuli in irritable bowel syndrome patients. Gastroenterology. 2006;131:352–365.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Naliboff BD, Derbyshire SW, Munakata J, et al. Cerebral activation in patients with irritable bowel syndrome and control subjects during rectosigmoid stimulation. Psychosom Med. 2001;63:365–375.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  54. Mertz H, Morgan V, Tanner G, et al. Regional cerebral activation in irritable bowel syndrome and control subjects with painful and non painful rectal distention. Gastroenterology. 2000;118:842–848.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Carruthers HR, Morris J, Tarrier N, Whorwell PJ. Mood colour choice helps to predict response to hypnotherapy in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2010;10:75.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  56. Carruthers HR, Miller V, Morris J, Evans R, Tarrier N, Whorwell PJ. Using art to help understand the imagery of irritable bowel syndrome and its response to hypnotherapy. Int J Clin Exp Hypn. 2009;57:162–173.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  57. Carruthers HR, Morris J, Tarrier N, Whorwell PJ. The Manchester Colour Wheel: development of a novel way of identifying colour choice and its validation in healthy, anxious and depressed individuals. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2010;10:12.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  58. Banissy MJ, Walsh V, Ward J. Enhanced sensory perception in synaesthesia. Exp Brain Res. 2009;196:565–571.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  59. Carruthers HR, Morris J, Tarrier N, Whorwell PJ. Reactivity to images in health and irritable bowel syndrome. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2010;31:131–142.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  60. Thompson WG, Longstreth GF, Drossman DA, Heaton KW, Irvine EJ, Muller-Lissner SA. Functional bowel disorders and functional abdominal pain. Gut. 1999;45:II43–II47.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study was in part supported by the JCOR10 Fund University Hospital of South Manchester, Manchester, UK.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest in relation to this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Translational Medicine, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Helen R. Carruthers, Vivien Miller & Peter J. Whorwell

  2. Division of Clinical Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Zochonis Building, Brunswick St., Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Nicholas Tarrier

  3. Education and Research Centre, Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, M23 9LT, UK

    Peter J. Whorwell

Authors
  1. Helen R. Carruthers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Vivien Miller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nicholas Tarrier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Peter J. Whorwell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter J. Whorwell.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Carruthers, H.R., Miller, V., Tarrier, N. et al. Synesthesia, Pseudo-Synesthesia, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Dig Dis Sci 57, 1629–1635 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-012-2054-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-012-2054-2

Keywords

  • Irritable bowel syndrome
  • Perception
  • Synesthesia
  • Visceral sensitivity