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BMC Neurology
Published in: BMC Neurology 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Case report

Geminate consonant grapheme-colour synaesthesia (ideaesthesia)

Authors: Donald F. Weaver, Cassandra L. A. Hawco

Published in: BMC Neurology | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Background

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition which manifests clinically as an involuntary experience of a sensory or cognitive pathway upon stimulation of a second unrelated sensory or cognitive pathway

Case presentation

We report a 55 year old male who presented with a life-long history of grapheme-colour synaesthesia in which the triggering grapheme was the double letter ‘ll’ (a geminate consonant), but not ‘l’ as a single letter. This patient’s synaesthesia was also font specific (becoming more evident with serif fonts) and influenced by migraine headache (being suppressed during the prodrome and aura of a migraine headache)

Conclusion

These results suggest that geminate consonants are uniquely processed rather than treated as two individual consonants. Also, the existence of a mechanistic relationship between synesthetic and migrainous events sequence was verified.
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Metadata
Title
Geminate consonant grapheme-colour synaesthesia (ideaesthesia)
Authors
Donald F. Weaver
Cassandra L. A. Hawco
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Neurology / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2377
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-015-0372-7

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