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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    What causes colour blindness?

    Related Topic
    Colour Blindness
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    Dr Meri Vukicevic

    Orthoptist

    Meri has 17 years experience as an orthoptic clinician. She works as an academic/lecturer in the Department of Clinical Vision Sciences and has completed a … View Profile

    The cause of colour blindness is quite complex. The light sensitive cells in the retina (at the back of the eye), specifically the “cones” are responsible for colour vision and vision and day vision. The “rods” on the other hand are responsible for night vision and movement.

    The cones contain 3 photopigments (pigments which respond best to a particular wavelenght of light). These are: chlorolabe (green); erythrolabe (red) and cyanolabe (blue). If one or more of these photopigments is either missing or defective, this will cause colour vison loss. Colour vision loss can be either red-green or blue-yellow, depending on the photopigment that is defective or missing.

    The genes responsible for colour vision are found on the X chromosome and so colour vision loss can be inherited and if so, will often affect males more than females. People can also develop colour vision loss as a result of eye disease.

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