g., Hubbard et al., 2005; Nunn et al., 2002; Sperling et al., 2006) whereas

other studies found no activation in V4 or only in areas SD-208 ic50 related to colour knowledge (Hupe et al., 2011; Rich et al., 2006). In addition, Rich et al. (2006) found that voluntary colour imagery (but not synaesthetic colour) in both synaesthetes and controls activated regions around V4. Using the repetition suppression paradigm of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which detects reduction in neural activity if repeated stimuli are represented in overlapping brain areas, a recent study found that synaesthetic colour failed to suppress the activity induced by real colour selleck chemical in V4, leading to the conclusion that synaesthetic colour is mediated by

higher-order areas of the visual hierarchy and does not fully share neural substrates with real colour (van Leeuwen et al., 2010). These conflicting results might be due to methodological differences or limited statistical power, as suggested by a recent review (Rouw et al., 2011), or indeed over liberal criteria (Hupe et al., 2011). However, it would be premature to state at this stage that the colour-selective areas (e.g., V4) are equally involved in synaesthetic and real colour, despite them seeming phenomenally similar in subjective reports (although note that synaesthetes can clearly distinguish between their synaesthetic experiences and ‘real’ colours). In a similar vein, although the psychophysical properties and neural correlates

of non-colour synaesthetic features remain to be explored, we should perhaps not assume that the shape- and location-selective areas of the visual system (e.g., lateral-occipital cortex: Kourtzi and Kanwisher, 2001) are the only regions potentially involved in such multi-feature phenomena. In addition to these brain areas specially tuned for visual features, we must look also at brain areas that lie beyond the visual cortex, such as those involved in shape/object knowledge (e.g., middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri: Cyclooxygenase (COX) Pulvermuller and Hauk, 2006). We can also explore the similarities between synaesthetic form and real shapes psychophysically to see if synaesthetic shape shows similar psychophysical properties to real shape, much as comparing synaesthetic and real colour has been used to explore whether this experience involves early or late mechanisms of the visual system. For instance, shape perception is susceptible to illusions (e.g., a physically straight line can appear perceptually curved in certain surroundings: Todd, 2004), but it is unknown whether synaesthetic shapes would be affected by illusion-inducing contexts.