Treating Color-Blindness in Adults
Color-blindness is defined as a person's inability to perceive differences between certain colors that others can distinguish. The causes of colorblindness are usually either genetic or brought on by neurological damage. Colorblindness tends to affect males more than females if genetic, and the most common types are red-green photoreceptor disorders, though there are a great variety of other types. Though color-blindness doesn't seem like a very serious disability, in some countries, it is not possible to get a driver's license without normal vision, and a color-blind person will have a hard time dealing with anything that is color-coded.
Currently, there is no way to "cure" color-blindness. Doctors will sometimes prescribe tinted lenses to help with the problem, but these are not completely practical treatments because they have their drawbacks. However, there is one branch of research that might provide another way to treat this disorder: gene therapy.
Up until now, no one considered gene therapy to be a useful treatment because color-blindness isn't usually diagnosed until later in a person's life. Doctors and researchers were convinced that these people were too old to respond to gene therapy treatment properly.
However, a recent study on adult monkeys shows that might not be the case. Monkeys that were color-blind since birth were effectively treated by gene therapy, even though they had already reached adulthood. This suggested that adult human brains might be able to respond to this treatment as well.
For now, there is no human gene therapy for color-blindness, but these animal tests prove promising. Scientists had never really considered an adult human brain to be able to respond to this type of gene therapy, but there is proof now that at least monkey adult brains can re-wire themselves in response to such treatments. One day, this might help not only treat color-blindness in humans, but other, more life-threatening diseases.
Sandhya Ramesh
VTPP 434 501
http://www.lifescientist.com.au/article/318765/gene_therapy_cures_colour_blindness?fp=4&fpid=3
Currently, there is no way to "cure" color-blindness. Doctors will sometimes prescribe tinted lenses to help with the problem, but these are not completely practical treatments because they have their drawbacks. However, there is one branch of research that might provide another way to treat this disorder: gene therapy.
Up until now, no one considered gene therapy to be a useful treatment because color-blindness isn't usually diagnosed until later in a person's life. Doctors and researchers were convinced that these people were too old to respond to gene therapy treatment properly.
However, a recent study on adult monkeys shows that might not be the case. Monkeys that were color-blind since birth were effectively treated by gene therapy, even though they had already reached adulthood. This suggested that adult human brains might be able to respond to this treatment as well.
For now, there is no human gene therapy for color-blindness, but these animal tests prove promising. Scientists had never really considered an adult human brain to be able to respond to this type of gene therapy, but there is proof now that at least monkey adult brains can re-wire themselves in response to such treatments. One day, this might help not only treat color-blindness in humans, but other, more life-threatening diseases.
Sandhya Ramesh
VTPP 434 501
http://www.lifescientist.com.au/article/318765/gene_therapy_cures_colour_blindness?fp=4&fpid=3
Labels: color-blindness, gene therapy, monkeys
posted by Sandhya Ramesh at 8:02 PM
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