What Causes Color Blindness

Vision and the ability to differentiate betweennegligible. There are three different types of
colors in the spectrum are extremely essential ininherited color vision defects; namely
order to meet day-to-day chores of life. Humanmonochromacy, dichromacy and anamolous
eye contains two specialized kinds oftrichromacy.
photoreceptor cells namely rods and cones thatThere are different reasons due to which a
actively participate in regulating these activities.person can acquire color blindness and color vision
Any abnormalities or errors in these cells candefects. Some of these include any disease in the
result in the individual being unable to identifyeye, injury to the retina, ageing, injury to the
colors, a medical condition better known as coloroptic nerve, damage to the brain, damage caused
blindness or color vision defect.due to excessive exposure to UV radiation or
Abnormalities in the color vision can occur eithereven as a result of side effects of certain
due to genetic disorder or acquired.medications.
Genetic defects or inherited disorders are primarilyDefects in the color vision were first identified and
as a result of mutated genes. Inherited colorreported in 1798 by John Dalton, an English
vision defect is primarily an X-linked disorder thatchemist. As a result, these diseases are
is mostly prevalent in males. This is because malessometimes referred to Daltonism. Today,
have only one single X-chromosome while femalesdetection and diagnosis of color blindness is
carry two sets of X-chromosomes. Hence, if theextremely simple and easy. There are certain
X-chromosome transferred to the male containsspecialized color vision tests such as
mutations that can cause color blindness, the childpseudoisochromatic plate tests and arrangement
is definitely going to suffer from the disease. Intests that are routinely used to screen for
case of females, chances of both theinherited color blindness disorders.
chromosomes carrying mutations are practically