title: Is synesthesia more common in patients with Asperger syndrome?
abstract: There is increasing evidence from case reports that synesthesia is more common in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Further, genes related to synesthesia have also been found to be linked to ASC and, similar to synaesthetes, individuals with ASC show altered brain connectivity and unusual brain activation during sensory processing. However, up to now a systematic investigation of whether synesthesia is more common in ASC patients is missing. The aim of the current pilot study was to test this hypothesis by investigating a group of patients diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (AS) using questionnaires and standard consistency tests in order to classify them as grapheme-color synaesthetes. The results indicate that there are indeed many more grapheme-color synaesthetes among AS patients. This finding is discussed in relation to different theories regarding the development of synesthesia as well as altered sensory processing in autism.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading Reading, UK.
authors.forename: Janina
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Neufeld
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Mandy
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.affiliation: Deparment of Medical Statistics, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zapf
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sinke
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Hinderk M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Emrich
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Prox-Vagedes
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dillo
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zedler
keywords: Asperger syndrome; autism; development; prevalence; synesthesia