Colour Blindness
Colour blindness is a disorder where there is a deficiency of colour vision. It is caused by a fault in the development of one or more sets of retinal cones that perceive color in light and transmit that information to the optic nerve. The genes that produce photopigments are carried on the X chromosome meaning that colour blindness is shown in males more than females. About 1 in 10 men have some form of color blindness. Females have an extra X chromosome to cover it up leaving them free of colour blindness in most cases. Certain forms of color blindness can progress to legal blindness (an acuity of 6/60 or worse), and often leave a person with complete blindness.
Colour blindness is most commonly inherited from mutations on the X chromosome but the mapping of the human genome has shown there are many mutations capable of causing color blindness originating from at least 19 different chromosomes and 56 different genes.
Colour blindness is most commonly inherited from mutations on the X chromosome but the mapping of the human genome has shown there are many mutations capable of causing color blindness originating from at least 19 different chromosomes and 56 different genes.
Everyday Problems Colour-Blind People Face
Living with colourblindness can be difficult. For example:
Most red/green colour blind people won’t know if they have cooked a piece of meat rare or well done and they are unlikely to be able to tell the difference between green and ripe tomatoes or between ketchup and chocolate sauce.
Colour blind people often try to eat unripe bananas because they can’t tell the difference between a green unripe banana and a yellow ripe banana – to them because both of the colours are the same shade they think they are the same colour.
Some food can look repulsive if you are colour blind, and colour blind children can seem particularly fussy over green vegetables – spinach can look like cow pat and colour blind children probably mean it if they say their food looks like poo!
Colour blind people can get quite cross with electrical goods which have red and green LED displays to indicate either that a battery needs charging or the machine is on standby. An example might be a handheld games console with an indicator light which changes from red to green depending upon whether the unit is fully charged or needs recharging. This can be very frustrating, particularly for a child.
Most red/green colour blind people won’t know if they have cooked a piece of meat rare or well done and they are unlikely to be able to tell the difference between green and ripe tomatoes or between ketchup and chocolate sauce.
Colour blind people often try to eat unripe bananas because they can’t tell the difference between a green unripe banana and a yellow ripe banana – to them because both of the colours are the same shade they think they are the same colour.
Some food can look repulsive if you are colour blind, and colour blind children can seem particularly fussy over green vegetables – spinach can look like cow pat and colour blind children probably mean it if they say their food looks like poo!
Colour blind people can get quite cross with electrical goods which have red and green LED displays to indicate either that a battery needs charging or the machine is on standby. An example might be a handheld games console with an indicator light which changes from red to green depending upon whether the unit is fully charged or needs recharging. This can be very frustrating, particularly for a child.
Future of colour-blindness
As for today there is no known treatment to cure colour blindness but maybe in the near future there will be some possibilities to overcome colour blindness and even enhance colour vision overall.
Researchers from the University of California and the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore showed in a series of experiments, how the colour vision abilities of mice can be enhanced. Mice have naturally only dichromatic vision which can be compared to red-green colour blindness. Dichromatic means, they have only two different types of colour receptors in their eyes whereas humans normally have three different types which make up our colour vision.
The scientists modified the mice in their experiments with the missing genes for colour perception which they took from humans. And those mice performed much better in the test setup as their dichromatic colleagues. This led to the assumption that the enhanced mice have a better (trichromatic) colour vision.
Other researchers have also shown that they could cure colour blindness in monkeys through injections of the missing colour receptor genes.
In conclusion colour blindness can be cured or at least it has been cured in about 6 cases of mice and monkeys so far.
Researchers from the University of California and the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore showed in a series of experiments, how the colour vision abilities of mice can be enhanced. Mice have naturally only dichromatic vision which can be compared to red-green colour blindness. Dichromatic means, they have only two different types of colour receptors in their eyes whereas humans normally have three different types which make up our colour vision.
The scientists modified the mice in their experiments with the missing genes for colour perception which they took from humans. And those mice performed much better in the test setup as their dichromatic colleagues. This led to the assumption that the enhanced mice have a better (trichromatic) colour vision.
Other researchers have also shown that they could cure colour blindness in monkeys through injections of the missing colour receptor genes.
In conclusion colour blindness can be cured or at least it has been cured in about 6 cases of mice and monkeys so far.