Immune Hypothesis of Synaesthesia

The original place of publication (non-journal, non-academic, non-peer-reviewed) of the immune hypothesis of synesthesia or synaesthesia, by C. Wright, at this blog, in 2012, can be found at the link below.

https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/is-synaesthesia-caused-by-low-levels-of-complement-is-bensons-syndrome-caused-by-too-much-complement-c3/

 

Surprising explanation for why face recognition matures unusually late in human development!

I didn’t expect to be reading this but I can recognize that this discovery seems to explain why face recognition is human cognitive ability that hits its peak surprisingly late in human development, and I’m now wondering how this fits into my theories about the relationship between my super-recognition and my synaesthesia, and that includes wondering how this discovery fits with my immune hypothesis of synaesthesia (which is all about pruning rather than proliferation), and of course I’m wondering how this fits in with what is known about super-recognizers. I guess I should just calm down and read the full text.

Coghlan, Andy Brain’s face recognition area grows much bigger as we get older. New Scientist. January 5th 2017.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2117259-brains-face-recognition-area-grows-much-bigger-as-we-get-older/

Jesse Gomez, Michael A. Barnett, Vaidehi Natu, Aviv Mezer, Nicola Palomero-Gallagher, Kevin S. Weiner, Katrin Amunts, Karl Zilles, Kalanit Grill-Spector Microstructural proliferation in human cortex is coupled with the development of face processing. Science. January 6th 2017.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6320/68

 

If synaesthesia is caused by low levels of complement, does that mean it is the opposite of schizophrenia?

The idea that schizophrenia is caused by brain dysfunction resulting from excessive synaptic pruning during the teenage years is certainly nothing new, I’ve been aware of it for many years and I think it is a winner, but the idea that this excessive pruning is triggered by higher than normal levels of complement appears to be new, although quite predictable in light of my immune hypothesis of synaesthesia which I published at this blog way back in 2012, even though, to be fair, at the time I was contrasting a variety of dementia (PCA or Benson’s syndrome) with synaesthesia, not schizophrenia. It is possibly worth noting though that schizophrenia was originally known as “dementia praecox” and might not be an entirely different thing to Bensons dementia in reality. I’ve written it before and I’ll repreat it again; I believe that Benson’s syndrome could be caused by excessive levels of complement, specifically C3 but I could be wrong in that specific suggestion. Regardless of the importance of the differences between Benson’s and schizophrenia, I’d still argue that this exciting theory about schizophrenia and high complement and over-pruning that is apparently supported by evidence is such a mirror-image of my theory about synaesthesia and low complement and under-pruning from 2012 that my theory could have been an influence on the schizophrenia researchers whose work has just been published in Nature, but I doubt that I got any credit.

It is exciting that progress is possibly being made into understanding and maybe even preventing schizophrenia, and it is about bloody time, (and how hard could it be to hinder the action of C4 or get rid of some of it, for heaven’s sake, to save some poor wretch’s brain and mind?) but now I’m left wondering what, if any, is the relationship between Benson’s syndrome and schizophrenia? My limited knowledge of Benson’s identifies only memory problems as a common feature of the two brain disorders, (and isn’t it interesting that I and more conventional synaesthesia researchers have linked synaesthesia with superiority in memory?) but I’m wondering if there is more in common between Sz and Benson’s than memory issues. I guess if I was really interested I’d turn to Google and PubMed to check whether someone has done a study of the immune system genetics of people who have Benson’s, but I have so many other less interesting things to do today. If no one has done such a study, then maybe they should, and then thank me for the tip.

 

Wilson, Clare Overactive brain pruning in teens could cause schizophrenia. New Scientist. January 27th 2016.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2075495-overactive-brain-pruning-in-teens-could-cause-schizophrenia/

 

Aswin Sekar, Allison R. Bialas, Heather de Rivera, Avery Davis, Timothy R. Hammond et al. Schizophrenia risk from complex variation of complement component 4. Nature. January 27th 2016.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature16549.html

 

C. Wright Is synaesthesia caused by low levels of complement? Is Benson’s syndrome (PCA) caused by too much complement C3? Could synesthesia and posterior cortical atrophy be considered in some way opposites? Am I a super=recognizer? June 7, 2012.

https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/is-synaesthesia-caused-by-low-levels-of-complement-is-bensons-syndrome-caused-by-too-much-complement-c3/

 

Wow, this is interesting

Scientists Find Vessels That Connect Immune System And Brain. June 3, 2015 | by Stephen Luntz. IFL Science.

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/vessels-found-connect-immune-system-and-brain

Structural and functional features of central nervous system lymphatic vessels

Antoine Louveau, Igor Smirnov, Timothy J. Keyes, Jacob D. Eccles, Sherin J. Rouhani, J. David Peske, Noel C. Derecki, David Castle, James W. Mandell, Kevin S. Lee, Tajie H. Harris & Jonathan Kipnis
Nature (2015) doi:10.1038/nature14432
Received 30 October 2014 Accepted 20 March 2015 Published online 01 June 2015

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14432.html

I find this most interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, the discovery showing that the human brain has functional lymphatic vessels connecting the brain with the immune system adds to a growing collection of evidence that the immune system plays important roles within the brain, which is an apparent partial violation of the long-held concept of the “blood-brain barrier” (as was described in a dated and inadequate chapter by Dr Karl in his 2013 pop science book Game of Knowns). In 2012 I was apparently the first person in the world, at this blog, to publish the ideas that high or low levels of the “component” immune chemicals at various points in development could be the cause of conditions of the brain such as developmental synaesthesia and Benson’s syndrome or PCA. My ideas were inspired by the very exciting research in areas such as microglia, complement, synaptic pruning and MHC1 molecules.

Another reason why this new discovery linking the central nervous system with the lymphatic and immune systems by researchers from the University of Virginia is so exciting is the fact that it is an unexpected discovery, as one might have thought that human anatomy would have already been thoroughly researched and discovered through the history of medical science to date, but then again, surprising new discoveries in human anatomy have not been unknown in recent years, with discoveries of new features in the human eye, knee and clitoris, the rediscovery last year of a major white matter tract (the vertical occipital fasciculus) at the rear of the brain that could play a central role in skills such as reading, and a new shape of neuron discovered in mouse brains. These new discoveries are exciting and also rather unsettling; exciting because it appears that important new discoveries in human neuroscience and anatomy are still possible, and unsettling because genuinely surprising new discoveries in science seem to indicate that science is not a steady accumulation of knowledge and a path of upward progress, as many believe. This may or may not be surprising to you, depending on which theory in the philosophy of science you favour. I think the discoveries of the VOF and the collection of discoveries about the roles and anatomy of the immune system in the human brain could be interpreted as evidence showing how incorrect ideas in science can become widely-accepted and widely-taught and could also have delayed the progress of new discoveries in neuroscience. How much further might we have come by now in our understanding of the human brain and mind if not for the popularity of the idea that the human brain is quarantined from the immune system? Which other influential ideas about the human brain are holding us back from a clearer understanding of the brain’s workings and diseases?

Personification at the heart of imagination in stories loved by children

The Thomas the Tank Engine stories, with railway stock who have faces and voices and dialogue and relationships and dramas, and the Wizard of Oz story, with a tin-man and a living scarecrow and curmudgeonly apple trees are just two examples of classic children’s fiction which translated very successfully to popular family screen entertainment, and both are full of objects that are personified. Many synaesthetes like myself have naturally and mysteriously developed conceptions of letters of the alphabet and numbers as having personal characteristics such as genders and personalities, as well as individual and specific colours. These synaesthetic ways of thinking formed in childhood and has become embedded in the structure of the brain. It is possible that all people once experienced synaesthetic thinking as children, but synaptic pruning did away with all that fanciful nonsense for most of us. Perhaps we were all personifying synaesthetes when we were little kids, and perhaps that explains why object personification pops up so often in children’s entertainment. To complement the winter school holidays one of our TV channels is broadcasting The Wizard of Oz for the umpteenth time. I’m not sure if I’ve ever sat and viewed the whole thing and forgotten half of it, but there was some familiarity in the deep and gruff sound of the voice of one of the apple trees. Could any grown tree have a voice that is not dark and resonant? I doubt it. Irrational as it is, object personification operates according to psychological rules and relationships, and big dark brown things tend to have deep voices.

I’m sure I’m not the first to observe that popular movies are full of psychology, and the Wizard of Oz is as good an example as any. There’s the object personification in many of the characters. There’s also some interesting psychology in the way that Dorothy feels that she has known her three strange new friends for a long time, but also logically knows that can’t be true (the story is set in a dream with bizarre characters which Dorothy’s sleeping mind has created out of memories of real people in Dorothy’s real life). “Oh, you’re the best friends anybody ever had. And it’s funny, but I feel as if I’d known you all the time, but I couldn’t have, could I?” Would face processing researchers call that “implicit familiarity” or “covert recognition”? It is actually person recognition, not just face recognition, but then again, I’ve been arguing at this blog that face recognition cannot be separated from person recognition. Faces are only memorable because they are the front windows of minds. I think Dorothy’s strange and unexplained feeling of familiarity is a nice illustration of the way that person recognition is swifter and more emotional than the verbal labeling of people with personal names and place names that we are able to do once we are able to figure out where that person fits into our autobiographical memory bank. That memory bank is quite a thing to search, so it can take a while. I like the way that the Dunning-Kruger Effect or something like it is woven into the centre of the narrative of The Wizard of Oz, the tin man not understanding his own emotional dimension, the scarecrow suddenly spouting a bit of geometrical wisdom once told he does have a brain, and the lion needing to be told how brave he actually is even though he had been through so much. There’s also a message about the possibilities of human development, effort and experience changing what we are, if we care to give it a red-hot go. That could have something to do with synapses. Of course, this story has a lot to say about the psychology of quacks, con-artists, fame and inflated authority figures, but the odd thing is, despite the many decades of popularity of this book and the Hollywood movie, great hordes of educated people in America and other English-speaking countries continue to be conned and robbed by quacks, con-artists, famous people and inflated authority figures. Yes, I’m no genius for pointing out the main message of the story of The Wizard of Oz, but if it is such an obvious message, then why does it appear to be so seldom heeded?

Action-packed YouTube video clip

Immune cell in the brain swallows synapses to sculpt neurons during development.

Posted by NIHNINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) at YouTube on May 22, 2012.

http://youtu.be/wb8UAyf8Nhw

The green thing is a mouse’s microglial cell. The movie is “courtesy Dorothy Schafer, Ph.D. and Beth Stevens, Ph.D. at Boston Children’s Hospital.” At this blog I have speculated that the kind of process shown in this brief video clip possibly happens less often in the brains of some people because they have lower levels of some of the complement chemicals that are a part of the immune system, with the result being the development of, or the retaining of, childhood or developmental synaesthesia. Some of the complement chemicals mark out synapses for destruction, I believe.

There’s a back-story to my theory

I can show data dating back to the year 2000 that supports my theory that low levels of complement proteins, which are a part of the human immune system, specifically C3, C4 and most likely C1q, are the biological cause of the development of inherited synaesthesia (at least in some cases). Before I had thought of the idea of a link between the immune system and synaesthesia I had, at the blog, published a theory that synaesthesia is in some way the neurological opposite of a variety of dementia named Benson’s syndrome (aka PCA, posterior cortical atrophy), based on my observations and reading. I had speculated that there could be some “magical chemical” that regulated the brain in some way and that oppositely extreme levels of this magical chemical could be the biological basis of both synaesthesia and Benson’s syndrome. Back in 2012 I read a small article in New Scientist magazine that blew my mind, because it appeared that it gave me some major clues about what that magical chemical could be. The article was about the exciting work of Dr Beth Stevens on microglial pruning in the brain and the immune system’s complement proteins. The term “pruning” was familiar to me from all of my reading about synaesthesia, which is a fun heritable brain-based phenomenon which I share with some of my first-degree relatives, along with specific gifts in literacy skills. The term “complement” in the context of the immune system, and the individual names of complement proteins were also familiar to me.

Being a super-recognizer, I’m pretty good at recognizing patterns, and I recognized that all these elements of information fitted together into an important and original multi-faceted theory. I was so excited that I published a brief outline of my theory at this blog in 2012. In 2013 I was shocked to discover that a prominent synaesthesia researcher and her co-author had published a theoretical journal paper titled “The immune hypothesis of synesthesia” which even included speculation that the “complement system” could be the element of the immune system responsible for the development of synaesthesia. I found no credit given in that paper to me or my blog. As I had published my theory first I believe I should have been fully acknowledged. I never thought that this could have been a case of two separate parties thinking of the same idea independently. I read their paper through and I looked into the educational and research background of both authors and their previous publications and found no study or writing about the immune system and no indication or explanation of why they might have suddenly had their own insight linking synaesthesia with some of the many elements of the incredibly complex immune system that only an immunologist would find interesting. 

This Easter I’d like to pose the question; can Simner and Carmichael offer data dating back to the year 2000 as the basis of their published version of “the immune hypothesis of synesthesia”? I can, and I would be willing to share my data with serious medical researchers.

A while ago I was sorting through some piles of old papers that I had stowed away years ago without sorting through them. These things happen during a busy family life. These piles had been sitting around for years, some of it photocopies of articles from New Scientist magazine that had struck me as interesting but which I hadn’t always had the time to read through properly. I was amused to find that I had stowed away an article from the March 1st 2008 issue titled “Thought control” by Bijal Trivedi. It was all about exciting research by the likes of Carla Shatz, Ben Barres, Simon John, Staffan Cullheim, Eliezer Masliah, Robert Terry and Lisa Boulanger about synapse loss in dementia and the interesting things that elements of the immune system appeared to be doing in the brain, contrary to the received wisdom that there is a thing called the blood-brain barrier that keeps the immune system out of the brain. I’m not sure whether or not I had read the article back then, but I can understand why it had sparked my interest. Back then it wasn’t enough of a spark to give me the idea of a link between the immune system and synaesthesia, because back then I hadn’t even heard of the terms “super-recognizer” or “Benson’s syndrome”, in fact the concept and the term of “super-recognizer” hadn’t yet been published. Back then I had not the slightest inkling that I had better than average ability in face recognition, so I hadn’t started thinking about whether it was more than a coincidence that I was both a synaesthete and a super, and which parts of the brain might be atypical in both. I hadn’t read the human interest story in The West about a Perth citizen who had been diagnosed with Benson’s, and felt curious about how the description of that type of dementia sounded like the opposite of skills that were superior or associated with synaesthesia in myself and kin. I must have forgotten about the content of the 2008 New Scientist article, if I had ever read it at all, because it would have been the ribbon which I could have used to wrap up my package of ideas neatly. Curiosity can be rewarded, even if it takes a couple of coins before the penny drops.

 

Some ideas that I’d like to (explicitly) lay claim to (right now) in 2014….2020…

New additions to this post added at the end.

A note of warning – If you are thinking about copying or plagiarizing any of the text, ideas or descriptions in this post or using it in your own work without giving me (C. Wright, author of the blog “Am I a Super-recognizer?”) the proper acknowledgement and citations, then think again. If you do that you will be found out and my objection will be well publicized. If you believe that you published any of these ideas before I did, please let me know the details in a comment on this article. If you want to make reference to this blog post or any of the ideas in it make sure that you state in your work exactly where you first read about these ideas. If you wish to quote any text from this post be sure to cite this post at this blog properly. There are many established citation methods. If you quote or make reference to material in this blog in your work, it would be a common courtesy to let me know about your work (I’m interested!) in a comment on any of the posts in this blog. Thank you.

The idea that Benson’s syndrome or posterior cortical atrophy or PCA, a variety of dementia, is caused or develops in a way that can be seen as the opposite of the synaesthesia linked with exceptional visual memory and literacy skills that runs in my family (this idea has been explored previously in this blog).

The idea that the above cited states develop or are caused in a way that makes them seem like opposites because they both affect the same or similar areas of the brain, but in opposite ways.

The idea that the above described process happens because Benson’s syndrome and our variety of synaesthesia are both mediated by the same or similar natural chemical or cells or biological agent in the brain, one caused by high levels of the mystery substance and the other caused by low levels (a hypothesis that I briefly suggested in January 2011).

The idea that one of the many known or unknown elements of the immune system that impact brain development is the mystery substance referred to above (a hypothesis that I briefly outlined in 2012).

The (implied in above ideas) idea of the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia. (This idea was first published by me in 2012 in a blog post archived here, was I believe plagiarized in 2013 here, and was the subject of my plagiarism claim here.)

The idea that one or more of the complement immune chemicals is the  mystery substance referred to above.

The idea that the C3 complement immune chemical  is the  mystery substance referred to above.

The idea that synaesthesia is linked with one or maybe more immune diseases or conditions caused by low levels of complement.

The idea that genes for synaesthesia stay quite common in the gene pool because of some associated cognitive advantage (probably superior memory) that balances out any disadvantages caused by deficiencies in the immune system.

The idea that some or many people unintentionally experience a memory process that operates in a similar way to the method of loci memory technique in their everyday lives, unintentionally forming long-term associations between individual learned concepts and individual visual memories of scenes (I have named this phenomenon Involuntary Method of Loci Memorization or IMLM).

The idea that IMLM operates in such a similar way to synaesthesia that one could argue that it is a type of synaesthesia.

The idea that synaesthetes are more likely to experience IMLM than non-synaesthetes.

The (implied) idea that the method of loci memory technique is similar to or a type of synaesthesia.

The idea that synaesthetes might have a natural advantage in using the method of loci because the method of loci is similar to or is a type of  synaesthesia. This idea that seems likely in light of the case of “S” the Russian memory performer with many types of synaesthesia described by Luria. 

The idea that IMLM is a phenomenon that is caused by enhanced synaptic plasticity throughout the life span.

The idea that IMLM is a phenomenon that is caused by enhanced synaptic plasticity throughout the life span and can thus be used as an indicator of which synaesthetes are synaesthetes due to enhanced synaptic plasticity throughout the life span rather than other possible causes of synaesthesia. Support for this idea comes from the fact that IMLM appears to be a non-developmental variety of synaesthesia that can form new long-term associations in adolescence and adulthood.

The idea that IMLM is a phenomenon that is caused by the unusual possession of levels of synaptic plasticity typical of a young child, during adolescence or adulthood.

The idea that IMLM is caused or enhanced by some characteristic of the immune system that affects the functioning of the brain. Many different elements of the incredibly complex immune system are thought to affect the functioning or development of the brain, and could thus be involved in IMLM, including the complement system, microglia and the MHC class I molecules. Researchers such as Beth Stevens and Carla Shatz have investigated this exciting area of neuroscience. In 2012 I hypothesized at this blog that synaesthesia could be caused by low levels of complement, this idea implying that the immune system is directly involved in synaesthesia (or at least some cases of synaesthesia). I believe these ideas were plagiarized in a paper published in 2013.

The idea that IMLM is similar to the “Proust phenomenon” in that it is very similar to synaesthesia or is a type of synaesthesia and involves episodic or autobiographical memory as a concurrent.

The idea that phonics as a foundational reading skill is similar to or is arguably a type of synaesthesia in that it involves the involuntary association of individual speech sounds with individual printed letters or combinations of letters, as the result of learning in early to mid childhood.

The idea that at least one type of dyslexia is like a deficiency of synaesthesia.

The implied idea that if synaesthesia has as it’s basis hyperconnectivity in the white matter of the brain, dyslexia as an opposite of synaesthesia or a deficiency of synaesthesia is or could be caused by hypoconnectivity in the white matter of the brain (I suspect there might be existing research evidence that supports this idea).

The implied idea that in at least one cluster or grouping of cases synaesthesia is associated with superiority in literacy or reading skill.

The idea that synaesthesia can happen in different regions of the brain, and because of this the experience of various types of synaesthesia can vary in detectable ways because of the influence on the synaesthesia of the varied ways that different areas of the brain operate. This can mean that one synaesthete can experience different types of synaesthesia that operate in very different ways, for example, some types of synaesthesia more rare or spontaneous or intrusive than other types. (I am not completely sure of the originality or the novelty of all of this idea.)

The idea that there is an association between synaesthesia and super-recognition that is not merely coincidental.

The idea that synaesthesia is a type of memory or learning. (Not sure if I’m the first to note this obvious fact).

The idea that synaesthesia concurrents are re-experienced memories, or re-activated “learnings” of concepts, not perceptions. (Not sure if I’m the first to note this obvious fact). In support of this idea I can assert that synaesthesia is like face recognition in that both are visual memory-based phenomena which are subject to the Verbal Overshadowing Effect or something very similar. My assertion that synaesthesia is subject to the verbal overshadowing effect is based on my own observations (outlined elsewhere in this post).

The idea that super-recognizers should or could be trained and employed as expert consultants in the practice of medical genetics.

The idea that medical geneticists and all types of medical specialists need to have a super-recognizer level of face memory or face recognition ability, so that they can intuitively and quickly recognize medical facies.

The idea that there is no clear point of distinction between medical facies or faces associated with genetic syndromes and normal faces.

The idea that super-recognizers could be used to facially identify blood relatives of a person or persons.

The idea that super-recognizers could be used to facially identify the specific ethnicity of a person.

(below ideas added January 28th 2014)

The idea that super-recognition or being a super-recognizer could develop as the result of an unusual level of fascination with the visual appearance of landscapes or scenes, rather than from a fascination with faces, and thus be a side-effect hyper-development of a part of the brain that serves two similar functions.

The idea that super-recognition or being a super-recognizer could, at least  in some cases, develop as the result of a general hyper-development of the visual sense to compensate for problems in the auditory sense during childhood such as temporary deafness, recurrent ear infections, glue ear or poor auditory processing.

(below idea added February 1st 2014)

The idea that lexical-gustatory synaesthesia is an exaggerated form of some kind of evolutionary adaptation in the brain that biologically primes the mind to attend to or react to speech on the subject of food (this idea was discussed at this blog in a post dated January 27th 2011, with more consideration in a later post).

(below ideas added February 6th 2014)

The idea that creativity might be immediately enhanced during and only during the duration of physical or visual-spatial activity because the activity activates areas of the brain associated with movement and in turn these areas activate other areas of the brain including those that give rise to conceptual thinking, and the increased activation makes novel associations between diverse thoughts and concepts more likely, and that this process is like synaesthesia or is a type of synaesthesia, and the types of physical activity that are the most effective inducers of this effect might be highly specific, highly specific in effects, highly varied between individuals and highly idiosyncratic, as is typical of synaesthesia inducers and concurrents. Driving a car can act as an inducer of this effect. (I have gone some way to exploring this idea in past posts.)

The idea that mental flexibility might be immediately enhanced by the above effect, which I will name “movement – thought-flexibility synaesthesia”.

The idea that thinking might be immediately enhanced by the above effect.

The idea that memory might be immediately enhanced by the above effect.

The idea that the above effect is similar to embodied cognition or is a type of embodied cognition.

(below ideas added February 14th  and  February 20th 2014)

The idea that synaesthesia is like the process of face recognition (and vice versa), because they both

– are subject to the verbal overshadowing effect or something similar

– are automatic

– are involuntary

– have a sensory inducer, in face recognition always visual, in synaesthesia I think most frequently visual

– have or can have a concurrent that could be described as a memory, a concept or a personality (I’m comparing face recognition with personification synaesthesias and the synaesthesias that I have described at this blog which have visual memories of scenes as concurrents)

– are or can be visual in both the inducer and concurrent

– typically involve the fusiform gyrus

– involve set pairings of inducers and concurrents (same person’s face seen before then recognized later)

– involve set parings of highly specific inducers and concurrents (I recognize that an employee at my local supermarket has a sister who has just started working there too, as their faces and bodies and hair are near-identical, but for the extra acne and the more receding chin of the new employee. They are very similar in appearance but my discrimination is highly specific, just as I can recognize that the green wall on the lower floor of a public library is close to but not quite the same colour as Tuesday.)

– both can have, but do not always have an actual face as an inducer (we can recognize the faces of celebrities in photos, caricatures and art, even seeing Marilyn Monroe’s face in a pattern of brown coffee cups stuck to the wall at the coffee shop at the art gallery.)

(below idea added February 17th 2014)

“My particular interest in personification is my own theory that personification synaesthesia (as experienced by myself) or something like it gives rise to superiority in face memory (or being a super-recognizer) by naturally making the faces of unknown people more memorable and interesting”

The above is a quote from an article that was published at the blog in October 2013.

(below ideas added February 19th 2014)

The idea that the synaesthesia brain is the result of the developmental influence or shaping from, or the adaptation to, the behavioural phenomenon of “flow” as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

The idea that synaesthesia, intellectual giftedness or high IQ and autism or Asperger syndrome seem to coincide more often than chance because gifted and autistic kids are more likely to experience “flow” and this in turn can influence the developing brain in a way that gives rise to synaesthesia.

(below ideas added February 20th 2014)

The idea that the genuine conscious awareness of synaesthesia is a threshold phenomenon that operates in conflict or competition with conscious thinking, meaning that consciously thinking about synaesthesia can inferfere with the perception of concurrents, and synaesthesia must reach a particular level of intensity before it interrupts the experience of consciousness and becomes itself the subject of conscious awareness. I think that the idea that thinking about synaesthesia can interfere with the perception of synaesthesia might be related to the “verbal overshadowing” effect which has been described and debated about by researchers. In fairness I should point out that Mark C. Price speculated in the recently published (2013) Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia that synaesthesia could be subject to the verbal overshadowing effect. My own ideas were arrived upon independently from Price’s writing or work.  I base the ideas of synaesthesia being a threshold phenomenon which can also be interfered with by conscious thinking on a number of my own observations. In direct contradiction to what I had expected to find, my scores for accuracy for individual letters and numbers in The Synesthesia Battery (a scientifically-validated online test of synaesthesia) were lower for the numbers and letters that have colours that I find beautiful and which I have thought about to some degree, while my best accuracy was for the numbers and letters that have the dull and ugly colours. It seems the less I think about the concurrents the more accurately I can percieve them when they are evoked. I have also noticed that most of the types of synaesthesia that I experience I was not consciously aware of before I started to think about and examine the idea of synaesthesia. I never realised that I had complete stability in the colours I associate with months and days of the week till I tested myself. While I had a dim awareness of colour colouring my thoughts, I’d not realised that this worked like synaesthesia till I went looking for a pattern using simple testing. My fine motor movement-visual memories of scenes synaesthesia evokes concurrents that are so fleetingly and subtly experienced that they just feel like random thoughts, and indeed I now believe it is possible that the random thoughts of many or even all people are in fact synaesthesia of various types. I have also observed that there are some very unsubtle and intrusive types of syn that I experience, and they are typically rarely experienced and are associated with people, emotions, faces, singing voices or music that I find striking or novel as inducers. Because of the circumstances of these examples of synaesthesia, I think some kind of threshold is being breached when these types of synaesthesia are experienced by me.

The idea that one of the established defining criteria for synaesthesia, that it gives rise to perceptions or concurrents which are “consistent and generic (i.e., simple rather than pictorial)”, is wrong, and specific categories of memories of complex visual images such as faces and scenes, which are processed in the fusiform gyrus, can also be experienced as genuine synaesthesia concurrents. I base this assertion on the fact that I often involuntarily experience synesthesia concurrents of this type, and I have written about such experiences right from the first post in this blog which was published in 2010. I have also named types of synesthesia that have complex visual memories as concurrents: the strange phenomenon, fine motor task – visual place memory synaesthesia, involuntary method of loci memorization, etc. There are also many accounts or scientific observations of synaesthesia with complex visual concurrents in the scientific literature on synaesthesia.

New additions 2020

Is the existence of hyperostosis frontalis interna or Morgagni-Stewart-Morel syndrome as a quite common but typically undiagnosed and untreated condition, and the common characterisation of it as a benign or inconsequential condition, evidence of the medical neglect of older women?

Could hypothalamic hamartoma be an underlying cause of hyperostosis frontalis interna? The hypothalamus, which is affected by HFI, plays a role in regulating calcium metabolism in rats, apparently. 

Are many cases of “autism” really undiagnosed cases of hypothalamic hamartoma? How many cases of “autism” could be cured or treated by surgical interventions for HH?

Does autism exist as a diagnosis because health and education professionals have always been unable or unmotivated to diagnose and treat the complexities of epileptic encephalopathy, rare genetic disorders and foetal alcohol syndrome?

Are more males than females diagnosed with autism because many cases of autism are caused by brain damage from a virus and the male immune system appears to be less able to fight at least one viral infection (as evident in the increased rate of male deaths from covid-19 and the greater numbers of females among asymptomatic carriers of covid-19)? Zika, rubella and cytomegalovirus are some viruses that can cause autism or brain damage in people who were exposed in-utero. Should all mothers of children diagnosed with autism be warned and medically-treated as though they were chronically and silently infected with an agent dangerous to a foetus before they plan another pregnancy?

 

The two most exciting science magazine articles of 2013 (far as I’m concerned)

The most exciting blogging moment of 2013 for me was probably when I discovered that my idea about linking synaesthesia with the immune system, and idea which I published in the winter of 2012 at the blog, had been recycled without my permission in a paper that was published in October 2013 in a journal that is apparently peer reviewed and all that fancy stuff. Of course, the big excitement of 2012 was thinking of this idea along with a suite of more important and related ideas, and the excitement continued this year as I read more about the work of researchers such as Carla Shatz, Ben Barres, Beth Stevens and Marie-Eve Tremblay who are busy pushing back the boundaries of human knowledge about the complex relationship between elements of the immune system and elements of the brain. It’s a wide open and potentially very important new area of scientific discovery, and below are the details of some  items that you can read if you wish to find out what the excitement is about. Have an exciting new year.

Miller, Kenneth Brain benders. Discover. October 2013. p. 30-37.  http://discovermagazine.com/2013/oct/12-brain-benders#.UsL_B_QW18E  (disregard the guff in this article about autism and schizophrenia)

Costandi, Moheb The mind minders. New Scientist. Issue 2938 October 12th 2013. p. 45-47.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029381.000-the-mind-minders-meet-our-brains-maintenance-workers.html

One thing in the world of popular science writing that hasn’t been so inspiring and exciting in 2013 is the famous Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s latest pop science book on the 2013 Christmas gift book market, titled Game of Knowns. The book has a chapter in it about the blood-brain barrier. The concept of a blood-brain barrier is an established and accepted idea in medicine, but I think that the new area of research about the varied and important roles in brain development and brain maintenance of cells and chemicals that were previously thought to be limited to playing roles in the immune system are very important exceptions to the old notion that the brain is normally quarantined from the immune system by the blood-brain barrier. I’ve had a quick look at Dr Karl’s new book, and it appears to me that the chapter about the blood-brain barrier fails to mention the role of these immune cells and chemicals in the brain, things such as microglia, MHC1 and complement system proteins. It appears to me that the chapter in Dr Karl’s book is dated and seriously incomplete, and missing some exciting material. Even for a populariser of science, I expect more.

Have my ideas been plagiarized in a paper published in a neuroscience journal? I believe they have.

This post replaces a brief temporary posting which was previously published here, with the notice that it would be added to at a later date when I had more time. I’m a busy parent who gets paid nothing to write and I have struggled to find the time to give this important matter proper attention. Do not be surprised if you find this post edited or altered.

I’ll get to the point straight away. I believe that I am the victim of plagiarism. At the very least, I believe that I have scientific priority in regard to a group of related scientific ideas or hypotheses, and my priority in regard to two of those ideas has not been recognized, and as a result some ideas which I published at my blog in 2012 have been presented in a journal paper that was published this year as though those ideas were new. The two ideas which were re-published by others in 2013 as though they were their original ideas are the idea that synaesthesia could be caused by unusually low levels of complement (a group of immune system chemicals) and also the idea implied by that idea that synaesthesia could have as its origin some peculiarity in an element of the immune system which plays a dual role in the development of the brain. The complement chemicals are certainly not the only elements of the immune system which are thought to influence the brain. I am not alleging that plagiarism in the form of word-for-word copying of text has happened in regard to the documents cited below. I am alleging that plagiarism of ideas has happened, and even though this type of plagiarism is not easy to prove, I can prove that I published my blog article introducing my ideas over a year before the journal  paper by the others was even received as a manuscript by the journal which would eventually publish it.

Below are the details of my blog post published in June 2012 which contains the ideas which I believe have been plagiarized:

Wright, C. Is synaesthesia caused by low levels of complement? Is Benson’s syndrome (PCA) caused by too much complement C3? Could synesthesia and posterior cortical atrophy be considered in some way opposites? Am I a super-recognizer? June 7, 2012.

https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/is-synaesthesia-caused-by-low-levels-of-complement-is-bensons-syndrome-caused-by-too-much-complement-c3/

and permanently archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine on June 21st 2012: http://web.archive.org/web/20120621071430/https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/

Below are the details of the published journal paper which includes what I believe is plagiarism of my ideas, or at the very least the re-publication of my ideas without any acknowledgement of me or my writing:

Carmichael, Duncan A. and Simner, Julia The immune hypothesis of synesthesia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2013; 7: 563.

Published online 2013 September 11. doi:  10.3389/fnhum.2013.00563

Received July 31, 2013; Accepted August 23, 2013.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3769635/?report=classic

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3769635/    (see the “article notes” at this version to view all the dates relevant to publication of this paper.)

http://www.frontiersin.org/human_neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00563/full

https://pubpeer.com/publications/13259457EAEBF97186167E7BDFB6B3

Please note the dates cited relating to the process of getting this paper published. There is nothing in those dates that could serve as evidence that these authors independently thought of the ideas in the paper before I published my blog piece. I published my blog piece in June 2012 and the above paper was received by the above journal in July 2013. The authors could have been wildly plagiarizing during the thirteen months or so after I published my piece and before their paper reached the offices of the journal.

I think it is important to point out that I had no contact or communication with either of the authors of the above journal paper about my ideas about synaesthesia and the immune system during the period before their paper was published. I did not inform them about or discuss my ideas on this subject privately and I did not privately grant them permission to use or publish my ideas, and I am not one of the “anonymous reviewers” who made “helpful comments” on the manuscript of the above paper, who were mentioned in the acknowledgements section of the above paper. Shortly before I published my ideas about synaesthesia and the immune system I did have a short and one-sided email correspondence about some of my ideas with a microglia researcher and I also sent a non-specific email off to a local medical specialist. The authors of the above journal paper did not privately inform me about any ideas or theories linking the immune system with synaesthesia before the publication of my blog post on that subject. It is my sincere belief that my ideas in that post were new and original and had not previously been published. I also did not receive any information or “leaks” about the work of the authors of the journal paper from any third party.

If you take a careful look at the details of my blog post you might notice that one of my scientific hypotheses is presented within the internet address of that posting and also within the title of the posting, and the internet address also contains details of the date of publication. Like all of the internet addresses of the posts at this blog, it was automatically generated by WordPress when I published the post. The date of publication is also automatically added to the blog post during publication, as is the name of the author. Unfortunately, the date of blog posts can be altered post-publication, with this alteration reflected in the web address of the post and the situation of the post in the chronological sequence of the blog. While the blog can be altered, one cannot alter blog readers’ memories of my blog posts and any records that they might have kept of them, and this blog has a diverse and steady readership. In situations demanding proof of the date and also the content of a document published on the internet, one free resource on the internet is invaluable; the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. This internet archiving service archived my June 7^th 2012 blog article on two different dates in two different forms. The earlier archived record was recorded on June the 21^st 2012 with the blog post included in a record of the whole home page of my blog on that date.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120621071430/https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/

This date was only a fortnight after the post was first published and over a year and a month before the others’ journal paper was received as a manuscript by the journal that would later publish it. This proves that my blog post was published on the internet at least before June 21^st 2012, a long time before the journal paper was published online or in hardcopy, or was even received by the journal publisher. The content of my blog post as was published then is also documented and can be checked. The blog post was also archived in November 2013 within an archive of a month’s blog posts.

In addition to citing the archived old record of my blog post as evidence, there is other evidence that I can cite to show a long history of me expressing ideas such as those in my blog post, ideas that overlap with ideas presented in the journal paper, and many more novel, original and inter-related ideas besides. The origin and development of the ideas in my blog piece can be traced back a long way in time within my own writing at my blog. I theorized not only that synaesthesia could be caused by low levels of the immune chemical complement, I also theorized that a form of dementia, which to my knowledge has never by anyone else been linked to or contrasted with synaesthesia in scientific discussion, could be caused by excessively high levels of complement. I also theorized that this type of dementia, Benson’s syndrome or PCA, could be seen as the opposite of synaesthesia or at least the opposite of the cluster of unusual functional characteristics of my own brain. Implied within this theory is the idea that there is some kind of network within the brain of parts that are especially sensitive to some factor that influences growth or pruning or cell death, because the same mental functions appear to be boosted at least since early childhood in the brains of me and some of my first-degree relatives which decline in Benson’s syndrome. I have no reason to believe that the early specific cognitive enhancements are some unknown facet of Benson’s, because there is no particular history of dementia in my family. I still see the two conditions as opposites, potentially with one common factor (extreme levels of some influential chemical) unlocking the mystery of both. My post published in June 2102 was not the first place where I published my own ideas about Benson’s syndrome being the opposite of synaesthesia. I had first written about this apparently original and new idea in a blog post published in January 2011:

https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/the-opposite-of-bensons-syndrome/

This blog article was archived and recorded by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine in March of 2011:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120308215442/https://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/the-opposite-of-bensons-syndrome/

It is clear that my ideas in my June 2012 blog post were a development of ideas that I had already published at this blog in January 2011, indeed I quoted from my earlier blog post in my latter blog post. My earlier blog post has been archived by a third party and stands with other related blog posts as a record of the direction and date of the development of my ideas, which are very congruent with the many ideas expressed in my June 2012 blog post. In contrast, it appears to me that that the authors of the journal paper which I believe is a plagiarism of ideas in my blog post cannot demonstrate any published and/or archived set of documents that show the development of their ideas towards any theory linking synaesthesia with any element of the immune system. I believe this because I have done a quick check of the lists of past publications of both authors. I have not been able to trace any development of theories about synaesthesia in their work or academic collaboration that might lead them to look at the immune system, and I was not able to find any hint or explanation in the journal paper itself about why these researchers arrived at a theory about the immune system. In my opinion, their theory linking synaesthesia with the immune system appeared “out of the blue” within the context of their own published research and published papers. If anyone can identify any dateable and/or archived document by either of the authors of the journal paper that shows an early development of the idea of linking synaesthesia with the immune system then I would be very interested to see that document, and I request that a comment detailing such document be left at this blog. The apparent absence of evidence of a theoretical progression or development towards “the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia” in the published work of the two authors of the journal paper is one reason why I cannot believe that they conceived of the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia independently as a team or as individuals.

The immune hypothesis of synaesthesia would not have been proposed had it not been for the work of researchers who investigate the dual roles of elements of the immune system which also play a role in brain development and neuroplasticity. The authors of the journal paper have primarily cited the work of Assistant Professor Lisa Boulanger who studies MHC Class 1 proteins, while in my blog post I concentrated on the work of Assistant Professor Beth Stevens who studies microglia and complement. It appears to me as though the authors of the journal paper have made a deliberate decision to anchor their theoretical ideas onto a different existing body of research in molecular biology than the body of research that inspired my theories. I believe they had the aim of distancing or differentiating the content of their paper from the content of my blog post. I first learned about the work of Beth Stevens from reading a June 2012 article in New Scientist magazine. Although the authors of the journal paper evidently at some point in time developed an interest in the work of Boulanger and consulted her during the writing of the paper, it is not clear why in 2013 they should be publishing a paper at least in part inspired by her work, because the papers of hers cited were published in the years 2004, 2009 and 2010, hardly the latest news in neuroscience. The most recent items in the journal paper’s references list relating to the immune system and the brain are a 2012 paper by Elmer and McAllister and a 2012 paper by Beth Stevens and two other authors. Boulanger does molecular biology at Princeton University in the United States while the authors of the journal paper do psychology and psychiatry at Edinburgh University in the UK, so it seems unlikely that the three by chance swapped ideas over lunch.

I have noticed an absence of mention of or enthusiasm for the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia in 2012 and 2013 media coverage and conference presentations featuring either of the authors of the journal paper, and I find this curious. It appears that they deliberately kept quiet about the hypothesis before it made it into publication. Why?

One of the authors, Duncan Carmichael, was interviewed for the British radio show The Naked Scientists on October 7^th 2012, and his research on synaesthesia was the subject of the discussion:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/2269/

Even though this interview was conducted roughly nine months before Carmichael’s and Simner’s journal paper about synaesthesia was received by the journal as a manuscript, no evidence of a conception of the idea of an immune hypothesis of synaesthesia can be found within Carmichael’s answers in this interview. He spoke about a genetic study, but said not a thing about the immune system. I find it hard to believe that a researcher who gave such an ordinary account of the contemporary state of knowledge and research on synaesthesia was a member of the team who generated one of the most original ideas in synaesthesia research for a long time. Wouldn’t he have been barely able to contain his excitement about the novel scientific theory? I know that is how I felt about it when I thought of it.

This is a university web page outlining the work of Duncan Carmichael:

http://www.anc.ed.ac.uk/dtc/index.php?option=com_people&func=showall&userid=387

I cannot find evidence of a lot of originality in thinking or the development of ideas about the immune system in the work detailed at this page. It looks like some standard ideas about synaesthesia explored by a PhD student whose background in psychology and psychiatry is pretty standard for synaesthesia researchers.

An abstract of a conference presentation delivered and co-authored by Duncan Carmichael can be found at the below link and a link to what appears to be the slide images used in that talk can also be accessed at the below link:

http://www.synesthesia.info/recent.html

This conference was the Tenth Annual National Conference of the American Synesthesia Association held in Canada May 31 through June 2, 2013, roughly two months before the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia paper was received by the journal as a manuscript. I looked at the abstract and also the slide show and I found a spelling error and some questionable unexplained assumptions in the slide presentation but I found no hint of the development of the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia. I find it remarkable that Carmichael could have co-written and submitted a publishable a paper containing some highly original and paradigm-shifting ideas barely a couple of months after giving talks at a conference about the same general area of research which gave no clue about the intellectual development of the novel ideas. When I look at the highly conventional and ideas about synaesthesia in Carmichael’s written work, media appearance and May-June 2013 conference presentation I find it impossible to believe that he is a part of the team that theoretically wed synaesthesia with the immune system for the first time based on their own ideas. One could argue that Carmichael was deliberately keeping the new theory a secret, but what can account for the contrast between the conventionality of his other work and the originality of the immune theory?

Perhaps the originality of the novel idea was the contribution of the other author? I’ll happily admit that Dr Julia Simner’s work on synaesthesia has consistently been interesting and she has made important and fairly novel contributions, but I could likewise find nothing in her work or in her academic background to indicate a curiosity about or knowledge of the immune system. Dr Simner categorizes herself as a cognitive neuropsychologist, and her academic background is in “psychology, languages and linguistics”.

This is a link to her university web page in which Carmichael is listed as a student supervised by Simner:

http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/people/julia-simner

Two 2013 media appearances are listed at the above page. One was at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival. These are pages related to an August 2013 talk by Dr Simner at that festival:

http://www.audionetwork.com/content/whats-new/events/geitf/julia-simner-q-and-a

http://www.audionetwork.com/blog/author/dr-julia-simner/2013/8/27/synaesthesia—a-merging-of-the-senses.aspx

http://www.audionetwork.com/show-article.aspx?id=386

Unfortunately a recording of that talk appears to be no longer available. The talk was presented while the immune theory paper was in the process of being published but I found no hint of the paper’s theme in the page about Dr Simner’s talk.

This is the page about an appearance that Dr Simner made at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on April 1^st 2013:

http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/categories/activity/sensory-dining-1404

A PDF of the festival’s 2013 programme can be accessed here:

http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/uploads/EventImages2013/Edinburgh%20Science%20Festival%202013%20brochure.pdf

There’s nothing related to the immune system to be found in info about that appearance.

A Word document of Dr Simner’s CV can be downloaded from Simner’s university page:

http://www.psy.ed.ac.uk/people/view.php?name=julia-simner

Simner’s CV includes a quite up-to-date list of the publications. I searched her CV and found only one mention of any word that I can think of that is related to the immune system, and it was in the title of the paper under dispute. I couldn’t even find one example of use of the words “synapse”, “synaptic”, “plasticity”, “pruning” or “neuronal” in Simner’s CV, which I take as an indication that Simner’s research on synaesthesia could hardly be described as “biomedical”, except for that one paper which stands out like dog’s balls within the contexts of the other work by Simner and by Carmichael. I invite you to check for yourself and let me know if I have missed something.

Here are some other links to information about Dr Simner:

http://www.biomedexperts.com/Profile.bme/1310901/Julia_Simner

http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/julia-simner(616de62b-07c6-430d-b217-d18880744549).html

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199603329.do

http://community.frontiersin.org/people/u/68706

I have argued that the originality of the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia stands in contrast with the conventionality of Carmichael’s other work and also stands in contrast with the lack of medical or molecular biology focus in Simner’s other work. I could also argue that the originality and the molecular biology of the immune hypothesis stands in contrast with synaesthesia research in general. Stale old models of synaesthesia proposing hyper-connectivity in the brain, inhibition of the process of neuronal pruning or disinhibited or hyper-excitable neurons have been doing the rounds forever. Researchers seem to be satisfied with explaining the biological basis of these theorized neurological peculiarities by suggesting that there are genes for these features, as though that is any explanation at all. The traditional models of synaesthesia seem to owe a lot to a layman’s understanding of simplistic models of psychiatric illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders (endless guff about neurotransmitters and brain “wiring”) or owe a lot to a superficial resemblance between synaesthesia and hallucinogenic drugged states of mind. There have been genetic studies of synaesthesia and there have been brain scan studies as well, but I don’t think you will find a lot of molecular biology in pre-2013 synaesthesia research.

If the authors of a journal paper read my blog post and took my ideas in that post and used them in their journal paper without acknowledging me, could they have any possible excuse? It is perhaps worth noting that at my blog my name as the author of the posts (my blog is not a collaborative one and only has one author) is not shown on posts at the main page of the blog, but the author’s name in blog posts is displayed when individual posts are selected for viewing, along with any comments about the post. There is no information about me (the author) at the main page of my blog, so I guess it is not inconceivable that a reader might assume my blog is an anonymous publication. Nevertheless, if one wanted to properly cite any of the posts at my blog or the blog itself the title of the blog could be cited. It is a standard practice to cite the first few words in the title of a book or other type of document instead of the author’s name if the author is unknown, and if the author is known to be anonymous they should be cited as “Anonymous”. There is no technical or formal reason why any of the pieces of writing at my blog can’t or could not have been cited.

I can see one possible objection to my claim of having scientific priority regarding the idea of linking synaesthesia with complement and the immune system. It could be argued that my idea was never properly published as my idea, because it was published at a blog and was not published as my idea in a paper or some other document in a scientific journal. Such an objection would be based on the assumption that scientific publication can only happen within a select and specialized type of publication that is widely recognized as a scientific publication, and cannot legitimately be self-published or published in a print publication or internet web site which is not specifically devoted to the publication of scientific research and scientific theories. My answer to this objection is that it is snobbery and it is also at odds with the current realities of our online world. Such an idea seems to be based on the belief that science is an enterprise that legitimately operates like a closed society in which membership is only open to those who have particular credentials or those who have jobs in particular types of institutions (universities or research institutes for example) or those who have the resources and social connections to be able to successfully submit a full-length paper for publication in a peer-reviewed science journal. But the history of science is peppered with examples of scientists who done important work outside of universities, of amateur scientists and gentlemen scientists who have made very important contributions, and of scientists who have offered interesting and respected theories outside of the fields in which they are qualified. There are also plenty of examples of crackpots who present themselves as legitimate scientists and of researchers who have made laughable blunders while straying outside of their areas of specialization. There are also too many examples of scientists who have made serious blunders because they apparently did not know about important and relevant facts or knowledge from areas of science beyond their limited field or from beyond the world of academia. I can also think of some great examples of scientists who have only been able to make important discoveries once they have had the courage to question accepted scientific or medical knowledge. My point is that science is not a neat, closed and orderly enterprise. It can and it should be informed by non-scientists who have specialized expertise and amateur scientists. Science can be seriously failed by academics who are blinkered or who over-reach the limits of their knowledge or who engage in scientific misconduct. If science was a perfect and orderly enterprise we would call it The Church of Science and lecture theatres would be places of worship. Science belongs to everyone; everyone benefits from it and anyone who has good ideas and a respect for evidence can play a part, and should be given due credit.

Even if there were no plagiarism in the journal paper by Simner and Carmichael there are still plenty of things in that paper which I find objectionable. As a synaesthete I am personally offended by the frequent use of negative language in reference to synaesthesia in the paper. Here’s a list of words and phrases from the paper: “neurological condition”, “excess cortical connectivity”, “excess connectivity”, “excessive connectivity is indeed a feature of the synesthetic brain”, “failing to supress non-relevant activation”, “excessive activity of excitatory neurons”, “aberrant connectivity”, and ”misregulated feedback mechanisms”. This repeated use of terminology with negative connotations regarding synaesthesia is certainly not typical of scientific or popular literature on the subject. It is rather amusing when one reflects that these authors are being so negative about the type of mind which I believe provided them with the central idea of their journal paper. Talk about biting the hand that feeds! Even more offensive and stupid is the authors’ described quest to find a link between developmental synaesthesia and the degenerative nervous system disease multiple sclerosis (MS). They aren’t even being as bold as researching a link between diagnosed cases of MS and synaesthesia, they are only looking at “people with the radiological profile of multiple sclerosis”, whatever that means. Developmental synaesthesia is a generally stable inherited neuropsychological variation characterized by white matter in the brain that has been described as having greater volume, greater connectivity or being “more coherent”. It is not considered to be an illness or a disorder, and it appears to be associated with superiority in memory. Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease typically with an onset in adulthood which damages the myelin covers of nerves in the brain and in the spinal cord. While there are some genetic risk factors it is not considered to be a hereditary disease. Vitamin D deficiency and infectious agents have been suggested as causes or triggers. MS causes a wide range of mental and physical problems and disability and substantially reduces life expectancy. It is not known whether is caused by an autoimmune process or a failure of the myelin-producing cells. The only apparent commonality between MS and synaesthesia appears to be that they both feature white matter that differs from the average state, but those differences could be characterized as opposite states, not similar. Simner and Carmichael’s idea that synaesthesia might be more common in those who look like MS cases strikes me as at best bizarre, but apparently they have submitted a paper on this subject. I think I know where that paper might belong.

To offend in so many ways certainly takes some doing, and I do acknowledge that there is a large difference between the amount of effort that went into the writing of my blog post and the amount of work that would have gone into writing and obtaining publication of the journal paper, but I believe that it is also true that the guts of that paper was an idea of mine, and I believe there would have been no paper to work on without my idea.

If I accept the proposition that this apparent case of plagiarism was really a case of two different parties reaching the same conclusion independently and within a year or so of each other, with the others being unaware of the existence of my prior publication, and then they innocently published their own paper as the first to introduce these ideas to the world, then I must ask why they were not aware of the existence of my blog post. Did they think they only had to search the traditional scientific literature to check whether their ideas were truly novel and original? I find that hard to believe, in this online, open-access world. Before I published these ideas at my blog I searched the internet and bibliographic databases to check whether my ideas were really as novel as I thought they were. I found nothing comparable. I am completely sure that my blog post would have been retrieved within the first page of a results display from a simple Google search on the terms “immune” and “synaesthesia” or “synaesthesia” performed in the months and year after I published my blog post. My blog has always done very well in Google searches.

I believe that the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia is the product of a synaesthete brain, my synaesthete brain. If anyone can show evidence that counters this, please let me know by leaving a comment. I have demonstrated that I was the first to publish the immune hypothesis of synaesthesia. I believe that I should have been acknowledged as the creator of this idea by the authors of the journal paper. I’m not pleased with what has happened. I do want my ideas which I have published at my blog to be read, considered and developed by other people. I am not a hoarder of ideas and I’m not out to make trouble. I just want to be contacted, asked and acknowledged, and properly acknowledged in print in the conventional manner if my original ideas are used or referred to in someone else’s work.  I don’t think that is too much to ask.