What causes color blindness?

Color blindness is most often a genetic visual deficiency that limits the colors that the individual can detect. Color blindness, which results in black and white vision, is very rare. The affected colors are usually limited to green and red, which often appear as tan or brown shades. Less often, the color of blue can also be affected. These photoreceptors come in two types, rods and cones. The rods fill the peripheral edges of the retina and are used in low lighting conditions, for example in night vision. Generals do not mean color, but allow people to see in the dark.

cones appear throughout the retina and contain pigments that respond to certain colors. Pigments communicate with the brain when they are fired. This is how one detects color. The cone requires to work brighter light than the bars, so we do not see colors in the dark.

Color Blindness is the result that certain cones incorrectly interpret wavelengths that correspond to their appropriate colors.Red, green and blue have the corresponding wavelengths. The red wavelengths are the longest, green colors generate medium wavelengths and blue colors are made of shorter wavelengths. For example, if green cones respond only to a slightly longer wavelength, green will be interpreted as red.

There is no medicine for color blindness, but it is usually not an inhibitory condition. Red and green traffic lights may seem like similar shades of the same color, but those with color blindness use the position of light as an indicator to stop or go. Color blindness becomes rather a problem if the work requires color separation. This could be for example for artists or designers or for an electrician who must see red, green and yellow schemes.

SUGREST study about eight percent of the world's male population is genetically blind while less than one percent of the female population isaffected. In addition to genetic inheritance, certain diseases or eye damage can cause color blindness. Regular eye tests test color blindness in children and adults and there are many online color tests. As people age, color sensitivity can decrease due to macular degeneration, cataracts or other conditions.