Scientists believe they have invented a pair of glasses that can help treat colour-blindness.

The specially designed lenses have been tested out by neuroscientist Daniel Bor from the University of Sussex, who has the condition.

The lenses, called Oxy-Iso, were developed in the US and Dr Bor, who works at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, volunteered to be a guinea-pig following a Twitter appeal.

Dr Bor mainly has a problem with the red and green spectrum.

He finds it particularly difficult when people use red and green on graphs in seminars as he finds it difficult to tell the difference between them.

His wife also puts him right when he develops an occasionally weird dress sense.

When Dr Bor tried the glasses for the first time, he found it quite an exciting moment.

He said: “I was standing outside the gym when I put them on and I could immediately see a difference.

“My toddler was with me and I could see how red her lips looked.

“She was also wearing a red-orange jumper and suddenly that was really standing out as well.

Passed test

“There was a real novelty to it.”

Wearing the glasses, Dr Bor managed to pass a standard check called the Ishihara Colour Test.

The test uses coloured plates which contain a circle of seemingly random sizes and colours.

However within the pattern are dots which form a number or shape clearly visible to those with normal colour and invisible, or difficult to see, to those with a red-green colour vision defect.

He said: “Without the glasses I could not see anything but with the glasses I could see virtually all of the numbers.”

Monitor light

However Dr Bor says there are drawbacks.

He said: “I can usually see the yellow light on my daughter’s baby monitor but with the glasses on I couldn’t see it at all.

Disconcerting “It was a bit disconcerting. It seems they worked with the red/green part of the spectrum but then restricted other parts.

“I wouldn’t wear the glasses all the time but if I was going to an art gallery or a flower show then I’d bring them along and see what I could get out of them.”

The glasses were originally developed to help medics locate veins and bruising by scientist Mark Changizi from US firm 2AI Labs.

On his blog, Professor Changizi said: “Although we didn’t design |our technology with colour-deficients specifically in mind, we weren’t too surprised that the Oxy-Iso may help with red-green colour-deficiency.”

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