The Impact of Undiagnosed Synaesthesia on the Interpretation of Structural and Functional MRI Images Connectivity Maps and Resulting Diagnoses

Synathesia is a condition in which stimulation of a sensory modality triggers another sensation in the alike or an unalike sensory modality. Currently, synaesthesia is deemed a neurological condition that engages unwanted transfer of signals between brain regions from one sense to another “crosstalk activation”. The probability that undiagnosed synaesthesia may impact the results of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Diffusion Tensor imaging (DTI), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and resting state connectivity studies is high, given the multiple anatomical and functional connections within the brain. In this paper, the currently available literature to mark which sensations adjured by synaesthesia and how could this impact MRI different modalities. Our study found that synaesthesia can have an opaque impact on fMRI studies of sensory, memory and cognitive functions, and there is testimony to suggest structural connections in the brain are also mutated DTI measurements especially, it shows enhanced structural connectivity for synesthetes between brain regions, higher Fractional anisotropy (FA), as well as increased in the white matter integrity between some regions.. Given the low dispersal of synaesthesia, the likelihood of synaesthesia being a perplexing factor in DTI, fMRI studies of patient groups is small; however, determining the existence of synaesthesia is paramount for investigating individual patients especially Shizoherenia, and autistic patients.