This 2018 UK review subject was colored-hearing arising on hearing music:

“Music-colour synaesthesia has a broad scope encompassing not only tone-colour synaesthesia elicited on hearing individual tones, but a complex and idiosyncratic mixture of phenomenological experiences often mediated by timbre, tempo, emotion and differing musical style.

The possession of synaesthesia or absolute pitch was shown to have very little effect on the actual colours chosen for each of the musical excerpts, but it might be reasonable to expect that music that elicits a strong emotional response may be more likely to induce synaesthesia than music that does not.

The examination of eight neuroimaging studies were found to be largely inconclusive in respect of confirming the perceptual nature of music-colour synaesthesia. Neither the hyperconnectivity nor the disinhibited feedback theory currently holds as a single categorical explanation for synaesthesia.

Theories promoting the notion of ‘ideaesthesia’ have highlighted the importance of the role of concept and meaning in the understanding of synaesthesia..and a replacement definition: Synaesthesia is a phenomenon in which a mental activation of a certain concept or idea is associated consistently with a certain perception-like experience.”

Much of the review was philosophizing and casting around for clues. The review cited interesting studies and reviews, including The Merit of Synesthesia for Consciousness Research.

One relevant element missed by the underlying research and the review was critical periods of human development. A cited reference in How brains mature during critical periods was Sensitive periods in human development: Evidence from musical training (not freely available) which illuminated some aspects of the research:

“In contrast to a critical period, where a function cannot be acquired outside the specific developmental window, a sensitive period denotes a time where sensory experience has a relatively greater influence on behavioral and cortical development. Sensitive periods may also be times when exposure to specific stimuli stimulates plasticity, enhancing changes at the neuronal and behavioral levels.

The developmental window for absolute pitch may be more similar to a critical than a sensitive period.

The auditory cortex appears to have an unusually long period of developmental plasticity compared with other sensory systems; changes in its cellular organization and connectivity continue into late childhood.

The effects of musical training have been shown to impact auditory processing in the brainstem as well.”

Let’s say that a researcher wanted – as one cited study did – to examine absolute pitch, a rare trait, present in a subset of synesthetes – music-color, another rare trait. The study as designed would probably be underpowered due to an insufficient number of subjects, and it would subsequently find “very little effect.”

Let’s say another researcher focused on brain areas in the cerebrum, and like the eight cited studies, ignored the nuclei in the pons part of the brainstem which are the first brain recipients of sound and equilibrium information from the inner ear via the eighth cranial nerve. Like those studies, they were also biased against including limbic brain areas that would indicate “a strong emotional response.” A study design that combined leaving out important brain-area participants in the synesthesia process with a few number of synesthetes would be unlikely to find conclusive evidence.

The reviewer viewed the lack of evidence from “eight neuroimaging studies” as indicating something about the “perceptual nature of music-colour synaesthesia.” An alternative view is that the “inconclusive” evidence had more to do with study designs that:

  • Had a small number of subjects;
  • Omitted brain areas relevant to the music-color synesthesia process;
  • Didn’t investigate likely music-color synesthesia development periods; and
  • Didn’t investigate associations of music-color synesthesia with epigenetic states.

Consider the magnitude of omitting the thalamus from synesthesia studies as one “perceptual nature” example. Just the background information of Thalamus gating and control of the limbic system and cerebrum is a form of memory indicated its relevance to synesthesia:

Despite the fundamental differences between visual, auditory and somatosensory signals, the basic layouts of the thalamocortical systems for each modality are quite similar.

For a given stimulus, the output neural response will not be static, but will depend on recent stimulus and response history.

Sensory signals en route to the cortex undergo profound signal transformations in the thalamus. A key thalamic transformation is sensory adaptation in which neural output adjusts to the statistics and dynamics of past stimuli.”

One of this study’s researchers described ways that an individual’s “stimulus and response history” became unconscious memories with the thalamus. Including the thalamus in synesthesia studies may also have findings that involve reliving or re-experiencing a memory, possibly an emotional memory.

In such future research, it could be a design element to ask synesthetes before and after the experiment to identify feelings and memories accompanying synesthesia experiences.

It shouldn’t be a requirement, however, to insist that memories and emotions be consciously identified in order to be included in the findings. Human studies, for example, Unconscious stimuli have a pervasive effect on our brain function and behavior have found:

“Pain responses can be shaped by learning that takes place outside conscious awareness.

Our results support the notion that nonconscious stimuli have a pervasive effect on human brain function and behavior and may affect learning of complex cognitive processes such as psychologically mediated analgesic and hyperalgesic responses.”

Does an orangey twilight of fading sunflowers help you feel? “Music-colour synaesthesia: Concept, context and qualia” (not freely available)


Resiliency in stress responses




The review cited studies I’ve previously curated:











Neurobiological mechanisms of state-dependent learning




Neurobiological correlates of state-dependent context fear






MicroRNAs in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder








See the below comments for reasons why I downgraded this review’s rating. “Stress Response Modulation Underlying the Psychobiology of Resilience” (not freely available)

Differing approaches to a life wasted on beliefs



Such was my take on the embedded beliefs in “Epigenetic and Neural Circuitry Landscape of Psychotherapeutic Interventions”:








He suffered from chronic depression from the ages of 24 to 34, and has seen his father and stepfather face huge mental health struggles.” “Humans 2.0: meet the entrepreneur who wants to put a chip in your brain”






An update on brain zapping

This 2017 general-audience article entitled Ultrasound for the brain provided a hyped update on brain zapping:

“Ultrasound could potentially treat other movement disorders, as well as depression, anxiety and a host of intract­able neuropsychiatric disorders..

This could be a breakthrough..

Researchers hope one day to help people with neuropsychiatric conditions by repairing or resetting the relevant neural pathways..

The potential advantages, especially for deep brain areas, are huge..”

Though not the main thrust of the article, another potential use of ultrasound would be to activate drugs delivered to a specific area, as this image portrays:

Vanderbilt University was again at the forefront of brain zapping, as noted in What’s an appropriate control group for a schizophrenia study? for example. I hope the disclaimers for subjects participating in Vanderbilt’s brain-zapping studies made it clear that:

“At high intensities, such as those used to relieve essential tremor, ultrasound’s effects are largely thermal: the tissue heats up and cells die.”

Comments are disabled because this post has somehow become a target for spammers. Readers can click the above control group link to comment.

Epigenetic effects of early life stress exposure





ELS is able to “imprint” or “program” an organism’s neuroendocrine, neural and behavioral responses to stress. Research focuses along two complementary lines.












“Imprint or program an organism’s neuroendocrine, neural and behavioral responses..

Leading to aberrant neural circuit function throughout life..

Which lastingly affect brain function.”

Taking this research to a personal level:

  • Have you felt uneasy when people are nice to you?

Mismatched human feelings are one form of mismatched reactions. These may be consequences of early-life experiences, and indicators of personal truths.


Incorporating this evidence may bring researchers closer to backwardly predicting the major insults to an individual that knocked their development processes out of normally robust pathways and/or induced “persistent changes in gene expression and ultimately behavior.” “Modulation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis by Early Life Stress Exposure”

I discovered this review as a result of it being cited in “Long-term effects of early environment on the brain: Lesson from rodent models” (not freely available)

A human study of pain avoidance

This 2016 UK human study found:






The researchers termed the subjects’ pain responses “learning” instead of conditioning. The difference between the two terms in the experimental contexts was that the subjects weren’t presented with 100%-certain choices to avoid pain.






Emotional content was neither included nor solicited. Emotions were inferred:




Two of the coauthors were also coauthors of If a study didn’t measure feelings, then its findings may not pertain to genuine empathy. The technique of Why do we cut short our decision-making process? was referenced. “Striatal structure and function predict individual biases in learning to avoid pain”

The current paradigm of child abuse limits pre-childhood causal research

As an adult, what would be your primary concern if you suspected that your early life had something to do with current problems? Would you be interested in effective treatments for causes of your symptoms?


The review’s goal was to describe:


The hidden assumption of almost all of the cited references was that these distant causes could no longer be addressed. Aren’t such assumptions testable here in 2016?


If the current paradigm encouraged research into treatment of causes, there would probably already be plenty of evidence to demonstrate that directly reducing the source of damage would also reverse damaging effects. There would have been enough studies done so that the generalized question of reversibility wouldn’t be asked.

Aren’t people interested in treatments of originating causes so that their various symptoms don’t keep bubbling up? Why wouldn’t research paradigms be aligned accordingly?

The review also demonstrated how the current paradigm of child abuse misrepresented items like telomere length and oxytocin. Researchers on the bandwagon tend to forget about the principle Einstein expressed as:


That single experiment for telomere length arrived in 2016 with Using an epigenetic clock to distinguish cellular aging from senescence. The seven citations for telomere length that had “is associated with” or “is linked to” child abuse findings should now be viewed in a different light.


“Claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” “Paradise Lost: The Neurobiological and Clinical Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect”
