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Published On May 3, 2009
CLINICAL RESEARCH
A Dance of Musical Color
Artists with a certain neurological condition put all their senses to work.
A dance of musical color is what Wassily Kandinsky aimed to portray in Three Riders in Red, Blue and Black (1911), a woodcut inspired by the artist’s neurological condition—synesthesia—in which stimuli trigger perception by the “wrong” sense, allowing the perceiver to “see” sounds or “taste” words. Now an Oxford University study has linked the condition to four regions of the genome, including two chromosomes that are associated with autism and dyslexia. The study also shows a strong hereditary component, confirming anecdotal evidence described by Vladimir Nabokov (a synesthete, as were his mother and son) in his 1951 memoir.
Dispatches
Too Much of a Good Thing Exercise is usually healthy. But taken to an extreme, can it put the heart in peril?
Higher Education Medical marijuana has swept the country, but physicians aren’t trained how to use it.
Homegrown Kayse Shrum is launching the first U.S. medical school affiliated with a Native American tribe—part of a strategy to train doctors where they’re needed most.
Out of Pediatric Care, Into…? For young people with chronic illnesses, the transition into adult care can be uncharted—and dangerous—territory.
Beyond Cold Storage A metabolic slowdown would press pause on the body until surgeons can repair damage. How close is it to becoming a reality?
Riding a Wave of Sound One way to get drugs through the blood-brain barrier: smuggle them across using sound waves.
Top Stories
The Neuroscience of Giving Up
Why do some people react poorly, even catastrophically, in emergency situations?
