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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 9, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

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Published on: February 20, 2014

Functional and structural brain differences associated with mirror-touch synaesthesia.

Henning Holle¹, Michael J Banissy, Jamie Ward

¹Department of Psychology, University of Hull, UK.

|August 8, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Observing touch activates the somatosensory cortex in everyone. Mirror-touch synaesthetes, however, show unique activity in the secondary somatosensory cortex (SII) when witnessing touch, suggesting its key role.

Keywords:

Consciousness Somatosensory cortex Tactile perception VBM fMRI

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience
Psychology

Background:

Observing touch activates somatosensory cortex regions, but its interpretation is debated.
Mirror-touch synaesthesia is a condition where individuals feel touch when observing it.
This study investigates the neural basis of mirror-touch synaesthesia.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the neural mechanisms underlying mirror-touch synaesthesia.
To compare brain activity in mirror-touch synaesthetes and controls while observing touch.
To investigate structural brain differences associated with mirror-touch synaesthesia.

Main Methods:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity in synaesthetes and controls.
Participants watched videos of faces, dummies, and objects being touched or approached.
Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyzed grey and white matter volume differences.

Main Results:

Both groups activated the somatosensory system (SI and SII) when viewing touch.
In synaesthetes, posterior SII was uniquely activated when viewing touch to a face.
Increased grey matter volume in SII and correlations between SII activity and subjective intensity were found in synaesthetes.
Synaesthetes showed hypo-activity in posterior SII when watching touch to a dummy.

Conclusions:

The secondary somatosensory cortex (SII) plays a crucial role in mirror-touch synaesthesia.
Mirror-touch synaesthesia involves specific patterns of activation and structural differences in SII.
The findings contribute to understanding the neural basis of sensory experiences and empathy.