Person: Melero Carrasco, Helena
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First Name
Helena
Last Name
Melero Carrasco
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Psicología
Department
Psicobiología y Metodología en Ciencias del Comportamiento
Area
Psicobiología
Identifiers
8 results
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Item Grapheme-color synesthetes show peculiarities in their emotional brain: cortical and subcortical evidence from VBM analysis of 3D-T1 and DTI data(Experimental Brain Research, 2013) Ríos-Lago, M.; Pajares, G.; Hernández-Tamames, J. A.; Álvarez-Linera, J.; Melero Carrasco, Helena; Peña Melián, ÁngelGrapheme-color synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which viewing achromatic letters/numbers leads to automatic and involuntary color experiences. In this study, voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed on T1 images and fractional anisotropy measures to examine the whole brain in associator grapheme-color synesthetes. These analyses provide new evidence of variations in emotional areas (both at the cortical and subcortical levels), findings that help understand the emotional component as a relevant aspect of the synesthetic experience. Additionally, this study replicates previous findings in the left intraparietal sulcus and, for the first time, reports the existence of anatomical differences in subcortical gray nuclei of developmental grapheme-color synesthetes, providing a link between acquired and developmental synesthesia. This empirical evidence, which goes beyond modality-specific areas, could lead to a better understanding of grapheme-color synesthesia as well as of other modalities of the phenomenon.Item Sinestesia, bases neuroanatómicas y cognitivas(2015) Melero Carrasco, Helena; Peña Melián Lago, Ángel Luis; Ríos Lago, MarcosLa sinestesia es un fenómeno neurológico de carácter no patológico que aparece cuando la estimulación de una vía sensorial o cognitiva produce una experiencia asociada en una segunda vía que no ha sido estimulada directamente. A pesar de que en los últimos 15 años el estudio de la sinestesia ha dado lugar a más de 500 publicaciones científicas, sus bases neurofisiológicas aún no han sido dilucidadas. Para aportar nuevos datos empíricos sobre esta cuestión, en esta tesis doctoral se ha analizado el fenómeno de la sinestesia investigando la frecuencia relativa de sus diferentes modalidades, así como sus bases neuroanatómicas y cognitivas. La tesis se divide en tres partes. En la primera (Capítulo I), se lleva a cabo una revisión sobre el estado de la cuestión, incluyendo la definición del fenómeno y sus características, los datos de prevalencia, las diferentes modalidades catalogadas, la evidencia experimental acerca de las diferencias estructurales y funcionales del cerebro sinestésico, los hallazgos genéticos y los modelos explicativos. En la segunda parte se presentan tres estudios. En el primero de ellos (Capítulo II) se analiza la presencia de sinestesia en una muestra española para conocer la frecuencia relativa de sus diferentes modalidades. Los resultados han mostrado a) que la representación de la sinestesia en una muestra española de 803 personas es elevada (13,95%); b) que las sinestesias conceptuales son las más frecuentes; c) que la variable sinestesia es independiente de las variables sexo, edad, lateralidad manual y nivel educativo. Estos hallazgos sugieren que la sinestesia está presente en un elevado número de personas, especialmente cuando se trata de modalidades conceptuales, constatando la necesidad de considerar la variable sinestesia como un factor relevante en los diseños experimentales, y de proporcionar a los profesionales del ámbito clínico un adecuado conocimiento del fenómeno y sus características. En el segundo estudio (Capítulo III), se investigan las características estructurales del cerebro sinestésico grafema-color, mediante la combinación del análisis VBM de datos 3D-T1 y DTI, atendiendo a regiones corticales y subcorticales y explorando las bases neuroanatómicas del componente emocional del fenómeno. Este análisis ha confirmado que las diferencias anatómicas se encuentran distribuidas a nivel cortical y subcortical, incluyendo áreas relacionadas con el procesamiento emocional, lo que ha motivado la propuesta de un nuevo modelo explicativo ¿el Modelo de Integración Emocional. En el tercer estudio (Capítulo IV), se exploran las bases neurofuncionales de las sinestesias acromáticas, siendo esta la primera investigación que se ha centrado en este tipo de experiencias para comprender la sinestesia grafema-color, su dimensión emocional y el efecto de congruencia sinestésica. Los datos obtenidos han permitido confirmar a) que la base funcional de la sinestesia grafema-color se encuentra distribuída en el cerebro y refleja diferentes dimensiones de la experiencia sinestésica: un componente perceptivo, otro atencional/integrador y un componente emocional; b) que el color sinestésico y el color físico no poseen una base neural idéntica; y c) que el efecto de congruencia no debe ser utilizado como criterio para diferenciar la sinestesia congénita de las asociaciones adquiridas mediante aprendizaje asociativo por las personas neurotípicas. En la tercera y última parte Capítulo V, se presenta una discusión general que integra los resultados obtenidos en las tres investigaciones y se discuten las implicaciones que la aparición de este fenómeno tiene sobre el estudio de las diferencias individuales y el conocimiento de la cognición humana en general.Item Why is the synesthete's “A” red? Using a five-language dataset to disentangle the effects of shape, sound, semantics, and ordinality on inducer–concurrent relationships in grapheme-color synesthesia(Cortex, 2018) Root, Nicholas B.; Rouw, Romke; Asano, Michiko; Chai-Youn Kim; Yokosawa, Kazuhiko; Ramachandran, Vilayanur S.; Melero Carrasco, HelenaGrapheme-color synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which viewing a grapheme elicits an additional, automatic, and consistent sensation of color. Color-to-letter associations in synesthesia are interesting in their own right, but also offer an opportunity to examine relationships between visual, acoustic, and semantic aspects of language. Research using large populations of synesthetes has indeed found that grapheme-color pairings can be influenced by numerous properties of graphemes, but the contributions made by each of these explanatory factors are often confounded in a monolingual dataset (i.e., only English-speaking synesthetes). Here, we report the first demonstration of how a multilingual dataset can reveal potentially-universal influences on synesthetic associations, and disentangle previously-confounded hypotheses about the relationship between properties of synesthetic color and properties of the grapheme that induces it. Numerous studies have reported that for English-speaking synesthetes, “A” tends to be colored red more often than predicted by chance, and several explanatory factors have been proposed that could explain this association. Using a five-language dataset (native English, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean speakers), we compare the predictions made by each explanatory factor, and show that only an ordinal explanation makes consistent predictions across all five languages, suggesting that the English “A” is red because the first grapheme of a synesthete's alphabet or syllabary tends to be associated with red. We propose that the relationship between the first grapheme and the color red is an association between an unusually-distinct ordinal position (“first”) and an unusually-distinct color (red). We test the predictions made by this theory, and demonstrate that the first grapheme is unusually distinct (has a color that is distant in color space from the other letters' colors). Our results demonstrate the importance of considering cross-linguistic similarities and differences in synesthesia, and suggest that some influences on grapheme-color associations in synesthesia might be universal.Item Achromatic synesthesias - A functional magnetic resonance imaging study(NeuroImage, 2014) Melero Carrasco, Helena; Ríos-Lago, M.; Peña Melián, Ángel; Álvarez-Linera, J.Grapheme–color synesthetes experience consistent, automatic and idiosyncratic colors associated with specific letters and numbers. Frequently, these specific associations exhibit achromatic synesthetic qualities (e.g. white, black or gray). In this study, we have investigated for the first time the neural basis of achromatic synesthesias, their relationship to chromatic synesthesias and the achromatic congruency effect in order to understand not only synesthetic color but also other components of the synesthetic experience. To achieve this aim, functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments were performed in a group of associator grapheme–color synesthetes and matched controls who were stimulated with real chromatic and achromatic stimuli (Mondrians), and with letters and numbers that elicited different types of grapheme–color synesthesias (i.e. chromatic and achromatic inducers which elicited chromatic but also achromatic synesthesias, as well as congruent and incongruent ones). The information derived from the analysis of Mondrians and chromatic/achromatic synesthesias suggests that real and synesthetic colors/achromaticity do not fully share neural mechanisms. The whole-brain analysis of BOLD signals in response to the complete set of synesthetic inducers revealed that the functional peculiarities of the synesthetic brain are distributed, and reflect different components of the synesthetic experience: a perceptual component, an (attentional) feature binding component, and an emotional component. Additionally, the inclusion of achromatic experiences has provided new evidence in favor of the emotional binding theory, a line of interpretation which constitutes a bridge between grapheme–color synesthesia and other developmental modalities of the phenomenon.Item DeepEye: Deep convolutional network for pupil detection in real environments(Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, 2018) Vera-Olmos, F. J.; Pardo, E.; Malpica, N.; Melero Carrasco, HelenaRobust identification and tracking of the pupil provides key information that can be used in several applications such as controlling gaze-based HMIs (human machine interfaces), designing new diagnostic tools for brain diseases, improving driver safety, detecting drowsiness, performing cognitive research, among others. We propose a deep convolutional neural network for eye-tracking based on atrous convolutions and spatial pyramids. DeepEye is able to handle real world problems such as varying illumination, blurring and reflections. The proposed network was trained and evaluated on 94,000 images taken from 24 data sets recorded in real world scenarios. DeepEye outperforms previous eye-tracking methods tested with these data sets. It improves the results of the current state of the art in a 26%, achieving an accuracy of more than 70% in almost every data set in terms of percentage of pupils detected with a distance error lower than 5 pixels.Item Graph theory analysis of resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging in essential tremor(Human Brain Mapping, 2019) Benito León, Julián; Sanz‐Morales, Emilio; Melero Carrasco, Helena; Louis, Elan D.; Romero, Juan P.; Rocon, Eduardo; Malpica, NorbertoEssential tremor (ET) is a neurological disease with both motor and nonmotor manifestations; however, little is known about its underlying brain basis. Furthermore, the overall organization of the brain network in ET remains largely unexplored. We investigated the topological properties of brain functional network, derived from resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, in 23 ET patients versus 23 healthy controls. Graph theory analysis was used to assess the functional network organization. At the global level, the functional network of ET patients was characterized by lower small‐worldness values than healthy controls—less clustered functionality of the brain. At the regional level, compared with the healthy controls, ET patients showed significantly higher values of global efficiency, cost and degree, and a shorter average path length in the left inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis), right inferior temporal gyrus (posterior division and temporo‐occipital part), right inferior lateral occipital cortex, left paracingulate, bilateral precuneus bilaterally, left lingual gyrus, right hippocampus, left amygdala, nucleus accumbens bilaterally, and left middle temporal gyrus (posterior part). In addition, ET patients showed significant higher local efficiency and clustering coefficient values in frontal medial cortex bilaterally, subcallosal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyri bilaterally (posterior division), right lingual gyrus, right cerebellar flocculus, right postcentral gyrus, right inferior semilunar lobule of cerebellum and culmen of vermis. Finally, the right intracalcarine cortex and the left orbitofrontal cortex showed a shorter average path length in ET patients, while the left frontal operculum and the right planum polare showed a higher betweenness centrality in ET patients. In conclusion, the efficiency of the overall brain functional network in ET is disrupted. Further, our results support the concept that ET is a disorder that disrupts widespread brain regions, including those outside of the brain regions responsible for tremor.Item Sex Differences in the Olfactory System: a Functional MRI Study(Chemosensory Perception, 2018) Borromeo, Susana; Cristóbal-Huerta, Alexandra; Manzanedo, Eva; Luna, Guillermo; Toledano, Adolfo; Hernández-Tamames, Juan Antonio; Melero Carrasco, HelenaIntroduction Olfactory dysfunction is an early marker of neurological disease and a common symptom in psychotic disorders. Previous anatomical and functional research suggests that sex effects may be crucial in the assessment of the olfactory system. Nonetheless, the neural mechanisms through which the factor sex impacts olfactory perception are still not well understood. In this context, we use fMRI to investigate sex differences in the passive processing of chemical stimuli, in order to obtain new neuroscientific data that may help improve the assessment of odor perception. Methods Thirty healthy subjects (17 women) were stimulated with mint and butanol (event-related design) in a 3.0-T MRI scanner. A one-sample t test analysis was performed in order to observe olfactory-related activations. Intergroup differences (women vs. men) and the influence of each aroma were analyzed using a 2 × 2 ANOVA and post hoc contrasts. Results Men and women showed differential activity (males > females) in right superior/middle temporal areas, the right inferior frontal cortex, and the hypothalamus. Both groups showed a predominance of the right hemisphere for the processing of odors. Conclusion Functional differences between women and men in olfaction are not restricted to specific sensory areas and reflect a more general sex-dependent effect in multisensory integration processes. Implications Considering sex differences is essential in order to develop more specific and efficient strategies for the assessment and rehabilitation of the olfactory system and for the interpretation of the olfactory loss as an early biomarker of neurological and psychiatric diseases.Item Relationship between episodic memory and volume of the brain regions of two functional cortical memory systems in multiple sclerosis(Journal of Neurology, 2018) Aladro, Yolanda; López-Alvarez, Laudino; Sánchez-Reyes, Jorge Mario; Hernández-Tamames, Juan Antonio; Rubio-Fernández, Sandra; Thuissard, Israel; Cerezo-García, Marta; Melero Carrasco, Helena