Color blindness is a characteristic of vision that occurs in a person from birth or due to some kind of nervous or eye disease. If the disease is congenital, it is not possible to cure it. Color blindness due to disease can occur in one eye or both at once. In the case of an acquired disease, when the underlying pathology is cured, the person’s vision becomes normal and a similar defect disappears.
It is thanks to such people that we can most clearly understand how color blind people see, and how much their perception of this world is distorted. Due to the peculiarities of genetics, as a rule, men suffer from congenital color blindness. Color blind women are twenty times less common. By the way, it is worth noting that until recently, doctors were confident that among women this ailment did not become widespread. However, ladies occasionally lose their ability to distinguish colors. This happens with age, or as a result of a serious injury.
To find out how color blind people see, you need to keep in mind that most of them do not distinguish only one color - blue, green or red, but some do not immediately see two colors (pair blindness) or do not recognize all colors at all (color blindness).
Problems in the operation of the color-sensitive receptors located in the main part of the retina are the cause of defective color perception. Special nerve cells (cones) play the role of receptors. There are three types of cones that influence how color blind people see. Any of these species contains a color-sensitive protein pigment, which is responsible for the perception of one primary color. People with congenital color blindness do not have the process of producing these color-sensitive pigments (one, two, or all three at once).
To detect violations of color perception, polychromatic test tables are used, on which numbers or simple figures are drawn in colorful circles. With that anomaly, as color blind people see, it is impossible for them to discern these numbers or figures. A person with normal vision can see the image immediately.
There is no drug treatment for congenital color blindness and until recently there was not a single method to cope with the disease. In 2009, a team of American scientists made an attempt to solve the problem of color blindness using genetic engineering. By introducing genes, the monkeys managed to solve the problem of color perception impairment and prove that no changes in the nervous system are required in order to perceive new colors.
There are also some methods of changing color perception using special lenses. Not so long ago, glasses were developed for color blind with lenses of purple color for the correction of color blindness. Thanks to the glasses, you can distinguish between green and red colors, which improves the color vision of people with a common form of color blindness. Contact lenses, which are used to undergo some tests, but can not be used for continuous use, can also significantly improve color perception.