Our retinas could be made to see a vivid shade of blue-green
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Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have made a breakthrough in vision technology, allowing five individuals to experience a new, intense green-blue color that has never been seen before by humans. This innovation holds promise for individuals with color blindness, potentially enabling them to see colors in a way that mirrors typical vision.
The human eye perceives color through three types of cone cells in the retina – S, M, and L – which are responsible for absorbing blue, green, and red light, respectively. When viewing colors in the blue-green spectrum, typically both M and L cones are activated simultaneously due to their overlapping wavelength detection.
Ren Ng, a researcher at UC Berkeley, was inspired by a device called Oz that can stimulate single cone cells using a laser. Ng and his team enhanced this device to target a specific area of about 1000 cone cells in the retina, activating only the M cones. This resulted in the participants experiencing a new color, named olo, which they described as a brilliant and intense blue-green hue.
In experiments to verify the participants’ perception of olo, they underwent color-matching tests where they adjusted a dial to match the color of olo with a standard visible spectrum color. The results confirmed that olo was indeed a distinct and vibrant shade of teal, different from any other color they had seen before.
Andrew Stockman from University College London sees potential medical applications for this technology, especially for individuals with red-green color blindness. By selectively stimulating M or L cones, it may be possible to broaden their color perception range and improve their ability to distinguish between these colors. Further trials and research are needed to explore the full extent of this technology’s capabilities.
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