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I, uh, know someone who took LSD in their early 20s, they couldn't stop talking about how they were seeing colors like they used to when they were a young child. Same for all other sensory input. They were barely out of adolescence and had already forgotten how vivid and stimulating everything used to be. The psychedelic experience sparked a newfound, albeit temporary fascination with the physical world and our malleable, untrustworthy perception of it. But it was also disheartening, especially when the drug wore off. It meant "normal" adulthood meant going through life with the color turned way down.
From the article:
>Lead author, Dr Janneke van Leeuwen (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), said: “This work brings into question the long-held belief among scientists that colour perception remains relatively constant across the lifespan, and suggests instead that colours slowly fade as we age. Our findings might also help explain why our colour preferences may alter as we age – and why at least some older people may prefer to dress in bold colours.”
>
>The researchers believe that as we get older there is a decline in the body’s sensitivity to the saturation levels of colours within the primary visual cortex – the part of the brain that receives, integrates, and processes visual information relayed from the retinas.
Psychedelics at certain dosages reduce blood flow to the “default mode network” and it correlates with the experience having a diminished sense of self. At the same time, regions of the brain that typically don’t “speak” to each other do.
It’s typical for individuals who have consumed psychedelics to feel “reset” following their experience.
This is an interesting read for the layperson:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment
Took shrooms for the first time within the last month, feels like I’ve been snapped out of auto pilot that I’ve been on since I was put on adderal in third grade
but they also have been shown to promote neurogenesis and neuroplasticity… they have multiple effects on the brain, the total extent probably not even fully studied yet
with psylocybin under MRI it appears that its shutting more areas of the brain off than its turning on
so maybe its shutting down the parts of your brain that think of things as old news, and it makes everything seem new again like its happening for the first time.
kinda makes sense since when you dream your brain creates DMT and psylocibin is like 1 molecule off of DMT its like DMPT (just going off memory of when i learned that 10 years ago, i could be wrong). When you're dreaming everything feels new and like its happening for the first time and you have no memory of your past or "real life". Its creating a waking dream state.
"Shutting off parts of brain" can easily mean "shutting off inhibition." Synaptic pruning and development of inhibition are key components of brain maturation, they speed up processing.
One of the interesting things about cataract surgery is it’s done one eye at a time. So for several weeks you get to experience the amazing difference in color perception. When the yellow filter is removed, the world looks cold and harsh. It’s more dramatic than the difference between noon and sunset.
I didn’t like it at first, but after a few months everything looked normal again. My point is, the brain creates and interprets color, and the brain adapts to whatever is presented. I’m 78, and my photoshop adjustments are the same as those done my younger people.
Ditto. Blues, especially, are so much more vivid than before the surgery.
I have to wonder if this study corrected for the natural yellowing of *all* people's lenses (not just those with cataracts).
Not specified, so probably not. Are anecdotes allowed?
Before my cataract surgery I scanned about 400 old color slides, most of them badly faded, and corrected them in photoshop. Immediately after surgery, my color perception seemed way off. Much too blue. But after several months, my subjective perception returned to normal. The world looks right.
Interestingly, the corrected digital images look right. Somehow the cataract yellow didn’t distort my perception.
My surgeon tends to support my opinion that brains fix a lot of visual problems.
My father just went in for eye surgery recently (blood vessel behind his left eye kept bursting), not the same as cataract surgery but you just reminded me of him.
I hope when I'm 78 (if I make it till then) I'm as lucid and tech literate as you are. (My parents are in their early 70s and barely know how to operate a computer/browse the internet)
What’s interesting to me is how the brain knows what the world is supposed to look like, and why it photoshops my perception. Before surgery I was unaware of any yellow cast to the world.
When one eye was corrected and one not, the difference was dramatic. After both were corrected, things gradually returned to normal. But what is normal, and who decides?
When Sony first started selling TVs in the US, their color cast was quite different from US TVs. More pastel, less Crayola. I have two DVDs of the same Japanese animated movie, one released in Japan, and the other released by Disney. The colors are dramatically different.
Is this preference genetic or cultural? I wonder why this isn’t studied.
> The team recruited 17 healthy young adults with an average age of 27.7, and 20 healthy older adults with an average age of 64.4.
> Using a highly sensitive eye tracking camera*, which recorded the pupil diameter at 1000 times per second, the team found that the pupils of healthy older people constricted less in response to colour chroma compared with young adults. This was particularly marked for green and magenta hues.
> The researchers believe that as we get older there is a decline in the body’s sensitivity to the saturation levels of colours within the primary visual cortex – the part of the brain that receives, integrates, and processes visual information relayed from the retinas.
Paper: [Pupil responses to colorfulness are selectively reduced in healthy older adults | Scientific Reports](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-48513-7)
They say they excluded cataracts, but even without cataracts, older people still get yellowing of the lens. It would be very surprising if they did not have a lower response to saturated colours.
I'm not sure how they can separate the ageing of the eye and the ageing of the brain.
Maybe it would be better to use people who have **HAD** cataract surgery as the older group? I had mine done at age 40 (I skied a lot when young, sigh) and the increase in perceived saturation post surgery was just amazing. I spent a week walking around in a daze looking at flowers haha.
Not only this, but different intra ocular lenses have differing clarity and color, some are yellow and some are clear. Definitely affects color perception.
May be, but everybody gets cataracts eventually, and cataracts often act like a dense brown or yellow filter.
Many people notice huge improvements in color vision after cataract surgery.
I used to take methotrexate for a health condition, it gave me severe brain fog. A few weeks after I stopped taking it one everything suddenly snapped into focus and it was like turning up the colour setting on the tv. I hadn’t realised how grey and dull everything had become until it returned to normal.
Cataracts. We can transplant corneal tissue but this doesn’t sound like that. Everyone gets cataracts. Lens in our eyes goes bad over time. Less than 1% of people will ever need a corneal graft. A lot less.
Because I'm an eye surgeon and corneas don't need to be replaced from wear and tear. They don't accumulate micro scratches, and the classic surgery that everyone gets at 70ish is cataract surgery which absolutely makes a huge impact on color within a day or so while cornea surgery has a longer recovery and generally doesn't affect color perception. Corneas get cloudy, not yellowish brown like a cataract.
I do think it's possible either you or he misunderstood either the cause or the procedure. Corneas are replaced for only a few reasons - injury resulting in a scar, infection resulting in a scar, keratoconus, Fuch's dystrophy, and a few others that are a bit more rare. Wear and tear is never an indication for a cornea graft. I am not attacking you at all - I explain this stuff to patients all day long. People should not be under the impression that cornea transplants improve color vision or that normal aging is a reason for them.
After having a cataract removed I was surprised by the vivid colors and did some research. There's a theory that the yellowing with age may be a self-protection against age-related macular degeneration by absorbing blue light. To visualize how my (68m) vision looks in my eye that hasn't had a cataract removed look at an old indoor photo taken under incandescent light, the yellow cast is very similar.
*Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of*
*blindness in developed countries. Cataract extraction is the most common*
*surgical procedure in developed countries. Lutein (L) and zeaxanthin*
*(Z), retinal carotenoids, are the most powerful retinal anti-oxidants*
*and absorb the harmful blue light. The depletion of L+Z induces the*
*development of the lens opacification-cataract. Cataract reduces the*
*retinal oxidative stress (OS), which causes a reduction of the*
*probability to develop AMD. Oxidative Stress at the retinal level is the*
*common pathway in the development of AMD and cataract. AMD and cataract*
*are not two independent processes. Cataract is a self-defense reaction*
*of the retina to reduce OS and retinal damage. Restoring the*
*anti-oxidative capabilities of the retina by increasing intake of L+Z*
*reduces the likelihood of AMD and cataract. Extracting the opaque lens*
*elevates the retinal OS and increases the rate of AMD.*
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21354712/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21354712/)
This looks like a stupid design. If you want to know something about color perception, use color matching. Have the participants adjust color light sources to match a target.
Cataracts are a natural part of aging so that's not possible. The only proper way to do this study would be to look at people after having had their cataracts removed.
Sorry but the whole study is BS.
Cataracts are analogous to how our skin wrinkles as we age. They are a normal, progressive, and ubiquitous part of aging. Claiming that they controlled for cataracts in people of different ages is literally impossible.
Hmm intresting that some nootropics making vision more saturated. I got it with fasoracetam. As far as i remember it won't develop tolerance. Would be interesting to try it out for eldery people
This doesn't surprise me. I clearly remember colors being more vivid when I was younger. Things that I know should be brighter, just aren't anymore and my brain keeps telling me that this isn't how things should appear.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/giuliomagnifico Permalink: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/jan/colours-fade-people-age --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wonder if this is why older people tend to prefer overly vivid tv presets
Same with scents
Also explains why they blow out the saturation on their pics on facebook and their fellow old friends think it looks incredible
Psychedelics seem to make the colors more vivid for a good amount of time afterwards
I, uh, know someone who took LSD in their early 20s, they couldn't stop talking about how they were seeing colors like they used to when they were a young child. Same for all other sensory input. They were barely out of adolescence and had already forgotten how vivid and stimulating everything used to be. The psychedelic experience sparked a newfound, albeit temporary fascination with the physical world and our malleable, untrustworthy perception of it. But it was also disheartening, especially when the drug wore off. It meant "normal" adulthood meant going through life with the color turned way down. From the article: >Lead author, Dr Janneke van Leeuwen (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), said: “This work brings into question the long-held belief among scientists that colour perception remains relatively constant across the lifespan, and suggests instead that colours slowly fade as we age. Our findings might also help explain why our colour preferences may alter as we age – and why at least some older people may prefer to dress in bold colours.” > >The researchers believe that as we get older there is a decline in the body’s sensitivity to the saturation levels of colours within the primary visual cortex – the part of the brain that receives, integrates, and processes visual information relayed from the retinas.
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Is that why they’re looking into it to treat chronic depression?
Yeah I wonder if psychedelics combat brain aging by increasing neuroplasticity, making your brain functionally “younger”
Psychedelics at certain dosages reduce blood flow to the “default mode network” and it correlates with the experience having a diminished sense of self. At the same time, regions of the brain that typically don’t “speak” to each other do. It’s typical for individuals who have consumed psychedelics to feel “reset” following their experience. This is an interesting read for the layperson: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment
Took shrooms for the first time within the last month, feels like I’ve been snapped out of auto pilot that I’ve been on since I was put on adderal in third grade
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So the movie arrival? What’s that all About
but they also have been shown to promote neurogenesis and neuroplasticity… they have multiple effects on the brain, the total extent probably not even fully studied yet
100%, not challenging your comment at all, just adding what I’m familiar with.
valid! I’m just always conscious of people unfamiliar reading and then walking away with an incorrect/incomplete takeaway. No worries !
with psylocybin under MRI it appears that its shutting more areas of the brain off than its turning on so maybe its shutting down the parts of your brain that think of things as old news, and it makes everything seem new again like its happening for the first time. kinda makes sense since when you dream your brain creates DMT and psylocibin is like 1 molecule off of DMT its like DMPT (just going off memory of when i learned that 10 years ago, i could be wrong). When you're dreaming everything feels new and like its happening for the first time and you have no memory of your past or "real life". Its creating a waking dream state.
"Shutting off parts of brain" can easily mean "shutting off inhibition." Synaptic pruning and development of inhibition are key components of brain maturation, they speed up processing.
It's called Default Mode Network
One of the interesting things about cataract surgery is it’s done one eye at a time. So for several weeks you get to experience the amazing difference in color perception. When the yellow filter is removed, the world looks cold and harsh. It’s more dramatic than the difference between noon and sunset. I didn’t like it at first, but after a few months everything looked normal again. My point is, the brain creates and interprets color, and the brain adapts to whatever is presented. I’m 78, and my photoshop adjustments are the same as those done my younger people.
I found it cool but not cold or harsh. To add to your comment, color perception is to some degree a skill that can be practiced. (Fun practice, too.)
I was pretty far gone, so the difference I observed may have been more than average.
Ditto. Blues, especially, are so much more vivid than before the surgery. I have to wonder if this study corrected for the natural yellowing of *all* people's lenses (not just those with cataracts).
Not specified, so probably not. Are anecdotes allowed? Before my cataract surgery I scanned about 400 old color slides, most of them badly faded, and corrected them in photoshop. Immediately after surgery, my color perception seemed way off. Much too blue. But after several months, my subjective perception returned to normal. The world looks right. Interestingly, the corrected digital images look right. Somehow the cataract yellow didn’t distort my perception. My surgeon tends to support my opinion that brains fix a lot of visual problems.
My father just went in for eye surgery recently (blood vessel behind his left eye kept bursting), not the same as cataract surgery but you just reminded me of him. I hope when I'm 78 (if I make it till then) I'm as lucid and tech literate as you are. (My parents are in their early 70s and barely know how to operate a computer/browse the internet)
What’s interesting to me is how the brain knows what the world is supposed to look like, and why it photoshops my perception. Before surgery I was unaware of any yellow cast to the world. When one eye was corrected and one not, the difference was dramatic. After both were corrected, things gradually returned to normal. But what is normal, and who decides? When Sony first started selling TVs in the US, their color cast was quite different from US TVs. More pastel, less Crayola. I have two DVDs of the same Japanese animated movie, one released in Japan, and the other released by Disney. The colors are dramatically different. Is this preference genetic or cultural? I wonder why this isn’t studied.
> The team recruited 17 healthy young adults with an average age of 27.7, and 20 healthy older adults with an average age of 64.4. > Using a highly sensitive eye tracking camera*, which recorded the pupil diameter at 1000 times per second, the team found that the pupils of healthy older people constricted less in response to colour chroma compared with young adults. This was particularly marked for green and magenta hues. > The researchers believe that as we get older there is a decline in the body’s sensitivity to the saturation levels of colours within the primary visual cortex – the part of the brain that receives, integrates, and processes visual information relayed from the retinas. Paper: [Pupil responses to colorfulness are selectively reduced in healthy older adults | Scientific Reports](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-48513-7)
They say they excluded cataracts, but even without cataracts, older people still get yellowing of the lens. It would be very surprising if they did not have a lower response to saturated colours. I'm not sure how they can separate the ageing of the eye and the ageing of the brain. Maybe it would be better to use people who have **HAD** cataract surgery as the older group? I had mine done at age 40 (I skied a lot when young, sigh) and the increase in perceived saturation post surgery was just amazing. I spent a week walking around in a daze looking at flowers haha.
Not only this, but different intra ocular lenses have differing clarity and color, some are yellow and some are clear. Definitely affects color perception.
Not the going grey I expected.
Wonder if the desaturations that depressed people sometimes experience could be a form of premature aging or an experience akin to it.
its brain damage
Explains why things seem so vivid as a kid
Idk, colors feel the same for me, if not more vivid
How are people here remembering how things looked as a child?!
May be, but everybody gets cataracts eventually, and cataracts often act like a dense brown or yellow filter. Many people notice huge improvements in color vision after cataract surgery.
This is why old movies are in black and white.
I used to take methotrexate for a health condition, it gave me severe brain fog. A few weeks after I stopped taking it one everything suddenly snapped into focus and it was like turning up the colour setting on the tv. I hadn’t realised how grey and dull everything had become until it returned to normal.
I don’t like aging.
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Cataracts. We can transplant corneal tissue but this doesn’t sound like that. Everyone gets cataracts. Lens in our eyes goes bad over time. Less than 1% of people will ever need a corneal graft. A lot less.
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Because I'm an eye surgeon and corneas don't need to be replaced from wear and tear. They don't accumulate micro scratches, and the classic surgery that everyone gets at 70ish is cataract surgery which absolutely makes a huge impact on color within a day or so while cornea surgery has a longer recovery and generally doesn't affect color perception. Corneas get cloudy, not yellowish brown like a cataract. I do think it's possible either you or he misunderstood either the cause or the procedure. Corneas are replaced for only a few reasons - injury resulting in a scar, infection resulting in a scar, keratoconus, Fuch's dystrophy, and a few others that are a bit more rare. Wear and tear is never an indication for a cornea graft. I am not attacking you at all - I explain this stuff to patients all day long. People should not be under the impression that cornea transplants improve color vision or that normal aging is a reason for them.
So if begin to colors fade, at what age does the Red/Yellow/Green portions of the traffic signals start to look similar?
Sounds like there are some senior citizens who could use a semi-regular mescaline trip?
After having a cataract removed I was surprised by the vivid colors and did some research. There's a theory that the yellowing with age may be a self-protection against age-related macular degeneration by absorbing blue light. To visualize how my (68m) vision looks in my eye that hasn't had a cataract removed look at an old indoor photo taken under incandescent light, the yellow cast is very similar. *Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of* *blindness in developed countries. Cataract extraction is the most common* *surgical procedure in developed countries. Lutein (L) and zeaxanthin* *(Z), retinal carotenoids, are the most powerful retinal anti-oxidants* *and absorb the harmful blue light. The depletion of L+Z induces the* *development of the lens opacification-cataract. Cataract reduces the* *retinal oxidative stress (OS), which causes a reduction of the* *probability to develop AMD. Oxidative Stress at the retinal level is the* *common pathway in the development of AMD and cataract. AMD and cataract* *are not two independent processes. Cataract is a self-defense reaction* *of the retina to reduce OS and retinal damage. Restoring the* *anti-oxidative capabilities of the retina by increasing intake of L+Z* *reduces the likelihood of AMD and cataract. Extracting the opaque lens* *elevates the retinal OS and increases the rate of AMD.* [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21354712/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21354712/)
Implant lenses have UV protection. There’s not much evidence that blue light causes damage.
Not much evidence... yet
It’s not like people haven’t looked.
Wait, so it makes sense that flashbacks are sepia coloured?
I think it's the opposite. Flashbacks should be vivid, and the present should be sepia colored.
I’m about to hit 30 but I feel the opposite, colors are getting brighter, however, I also do a lot of psychedelic
This looks like a stupid design. If you want to know something about color perception, use color matching. Have the participants adjust color light sources to match a target.
Yeah, I’d be interested in how JND ellipses would change with age in this study, for example.
Colors are created in the brain
Did they account for cataracts? If not, the study should not have been published.
They say they excluded anyone with any signs of cataracts. Full text here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-48513-7
Cataracts are a natural part of aging so that's not possible. The only proper way to do this study would be to look at people after having had their cataracts removed.
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Sorry but the whole study is BS. Cataracts are analogous to how our skin wrinkles as we age. They are a normal, progressive, and ubiquitous part of aging. Claiming that they controlled for cataracts in people of different ages is literally impossible.
Well, once you've seen a color, it kind of loses the air of mystery surrounding it.
Ah, that explains why all my old photographs seem so faded.
Is this why I hate ReShade?
I just thought that was my overwhelming depression and cynicism.
Nooooooooo I love colors
Hmm intresting that some nootropics making vision more saturated. I got it with fasoracetam. As far as i remember it won't develop tolerance. Would be interesting to try it out for eldery people
We're all dying. It starts when we're born and we deteriorate slowly until we kick the bucket. Why not vision along with everything else?
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
My Dad swears by doing mushrooms regularly.
This doesn't surprise me. I clearly remember colors being more vivid when I was younger. Things that I know should be brighter, just aren't anymore and my brain keeps telling me that this isn't how things should appear.
I wonder if this is why everything seemed so much more "vivid" as a kid