25 facts about MRI
Causes of color blindness
Color blindness is a very common disease that is estimated to affect over 300 million people worldwide! Color blindness in men occurs in 1 in 12 people, while color blindness in women occurs in only 1 in 200. The question immediately arises, why are color blind people not distinguishing colors?
The fact is that seeing colors in the spectrum of light is a complex process that begins with the ability of the eyes to respond to light waves of various wavelengths. Light containing wavelengths of all colors enters the eye through the cornea and travels through the lens and transparent jelly-like tissue in the eye (vitreous) to the wavelength-sensitive cells (cones) at the back of the eye. Cones are sensitive to short (blue), medium (green), or long (red) wavelengths of light. The chemicals in the cones trigger a response and send wavelength information through the optic nerve to the brain. If your eyes are normal, you perceive color. But if your cones lack one or more wavelength-sensitive chemicals, you won’t be able to distinguish between red, green, or blue.
Color blindness has several causes: congenital and acquired.
congenital color blindness
Color blindness is usually inherited, because color blindness in children comes with birth. Inherited color anomaly most often passes from mother to son. What colors do color blind people confuse? A colorblind person, a color blind person, cannot distinguish between certain shades of red and green. Less commonly, people with color blindness cannot distinguish between shades of blue and yellow.
Acquired color blindness
How do you become colorblind? Acquired color blindness, a color vision problem (a person cannot distinguish colors) that occurs later in life, is the result of:
eye diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration;
diseases of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis;
eye or brain injury;
toxic effects from drugs;
exposure to chemicals;
aging – colorblind vision slowly deteriorates with age.
