ArticleBMC neuroscience2026
Awareness and self-reported synesthesia related experiences among undergraduate medical students: a cross-sectional study.
Article in BMC neuroscience, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSynesthesia refers to a neurological condition in which stimuli from one sensory pathway induce perception via another sensory pathway. This study evaluated self-reported synesthesia related experiences, awareness of such experiences, and other associated demographic and clinical attributes among undergraduate medical students.
methodsThis cross-sectional online survey targeted 617 medical students aged 18-25 years during the 2024-2025 academic year. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire on demographics, awareness of synesthesia-related experiences, selected medical and psychological factors, and their possible relevance to education. All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 25.0).
resultsAmong the 617 participants, 53.5% were female, and 46.5% were male. Only 31.8% of the participants reported previous familiarity with synesthesia-like associations. Self-reported experiences compatible with synesthesia-related subtypes varied across chromesthesia-related, grapheme-color-related, lexical-gustatory-related, time-space-related, and numerical-form-related items. Differences were also established based on gender for some items. Female participants more frequently reported headaches and synesthesia-related experiences, whereas male participants more often selected responses indicating no such experiences and more frequently endorsed numerical form-related items (p < 0.001). Age did not show any significant differences. Significant correlations also existed among the synesthetic subtypes, with chromesthesia exhibiting a positive correlation with grapheme-color, lexical-gustatory, time-space, and numerical form synesthetics (p < 0.001).
conclusionAwareness of synesthesia was low among the medical students in this study. Although some participants reported experiences compatible with synesthesia-related phenomena, these results do not confirm the prevalence of synesthesia. Instead, they described patterns of self-reported synesthesia-related experiences in an undergraduate medical student sample. Future studies using validated diagnostic and consistency-based tools are needed to determine the true frequency and educational relevance of confirmed synesthesia among medical students.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.