Gold-Infused Contacts for Color Vision Correction

Article: Color blindness-correcting contact lenses
Source: American Chemical Society, via ScienceDaily  and Technology Networks
Published: March 3, 2021

Researchers at the American Chemical Society have created a prototype of a contact lens using gold nanoparticles to correct red-green color vision deficiencies. Previously, colorblindness-correcting contact lenses using dyes as filters (to shift the color confusion curve and thereby enhance contrast between colors) had the problem of leaching the dyes. The advantage of using gold to produce the color filter is that gold is inert. For a quotidian example, one can recall the culinary use of gold leaf in more elegant dishes to add artistic flare, though the gold is not metabolized by the body in any way. The use of gold nanoparticles to produce a color-filtering rosy tint is also not surprising given the artistic use of gold particles to impart a red color to stained or blown glass. The rosy tint of the gold-infused contact lenses were matched with the wavelength profile of existing dyed contact lenses for correction of red-green color vision deficiency. The researchers found that 40 nm-wide gold nanoparticles were the most effective, as the particles did not clump or filter more color than necessary. Because gold is inert to the body, there is a lot of potential with this line of research, so it will be interesting to see its performance in real eyes.

Personal commentary: The beginning of the source news article asks the reader to imagine seeing the world in tones of gray. While it is tempting to associate grayed out vision with "colorblindness," complete absence of color vision (monochromacy) is extremely rare. Most people who are labeled "colorblind" have anomalous color vision perception due to different wavelength sensitivity of a genetic mutation to one of their cones. This means they see a shift in color vision, not a complete absence of it. Only if there is existing color vision perception could lenses that selectively filter wavelengths of light be effective at enhancing color contrasts. The rest of the article addresses red-green color vision deficiency, the most common type being anomalous deuterochromacy, caused by an x-linked genetic mutation to the "green" cones responsible for detecting "medium" wavelengths of light. Because these mutations, though categorized by the cones they affect, are individual to the person, one could also think of color vision deficiencies and color vision perception as a personal experience, resulting in differences in improvement for different people with (even the same type of) color vision deficiency. The ideal lens would thus be customized to the individual's color vision.

My rating of this study: ⭐⭐

Further reading: Blue-Light Filtering Lenses Do Not Reduce Computer Eye Strain
Further reading: Agreement. But modulating blue light can help with circadian rhythm.