2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology
The experiment has been done in monkeys via injecting viruses into their eyes for grow or turn on cones.
All *male* squirrel monkeys are colourblind. They only have 2 functioning cones of the 3 required for colour vision.
A few weeks after receiving a gene therapy the male squirrel monkeys could distinguish the new colours. They could see colours they never could before. Their brain adapted to the new sensory input.
A few human relatable situations.
There are people with red-green colour blindness that cannot distinguish between the two. You can buy special glasses that filter some middle wavelengths. Let's some subset of colour-blind people "perceive" those colours for the first time. In this case we are taking information away from the brain in order to improve perception.
Lots and lots and lots of preventable blindness issues. Someone can have a cornea replaced and "see" colour for the first time. Someone can have laser eye surgery which thins the lens, such that they can now see more "blue" and even into UV range. For the Lasik people, they mostly report it as pain or flashes, it's not useful information.
Comment by Free_Range_Braincell at 22/01/2024 at 04:05 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It's interesting that you brought up the glasses... although they do block certain wavelengths, they don't allow people to perceive new colours. They simply increase the contrast between different colours of hues that were harder to distinguish before (and decrease the contrast of other hues, so it's a trade-off...). The science behind those glasses is quite sketchy, and the glasses are widely considered to be a scam.
I'll definitely look into the squirrel and monkey experiments, though. Thanks for bringing that up :D