

The freckles can appear in the white part of your eye – the sclera – or in the iris – the coloured part. You may not even know you have them unless they are pointed out to you during your eye exam.Īlthough they can be present at birth, eye freckles usually appear later on, at the same time as skin freckles or later on in life. The pigment cells cluster together forming spots which are often not visible to the naked eye, varying in size and shape. Just like freckles on your skin, eye freckles are caused by a build-up of melanin or pigment. Why do I have a brown spot on my eyeball? There are several possible reasons for these spots, the most common being Choroidal Nevus, more commonly known as “eye freckles” and are usually as harmless as they sound. Myth or Fact: Blue Eyes Are More Sensitive to Light.If you’re one of the 5 -10% of people who have brown spots on your eyes, you’re probably wondering what they are and what causes them.


Eye Color: Unique as a Fingerprint.ĭuke University Health System. Genetics Home Reference.Īmerican Academy of Opthamology. Mutation in the PAX6 gene in twenty patients with aniridia.

GPR143 mutations in Chinese patients with ocular albinism type 1. Jia X, Yuan J, Jia X, Ling S, Li S, Guo X. National Library of Medicine: Genetics Home Reference. Eldridge green lecture RCOphth Annual Congress Glasgow May 2019. What colour are your eyes? Teaching the genetics of eye colour and colour vision. Is eye color determined by genetics?.Įdwards AW. A global view of the OCA2-HERC2 region and pigmentation. Gene-gene interactions contribute to eye colour variation in humans. Pośpiech E, Draus-Barini J, Kupiec T, Wojas-Pelc A, Branicki W. What colour are newborns’ eyes? Prevalence of iris colour in the Newborn Eye Screening Test (NEST) study. Ludwig CA, Callaway NF, Fredrick DR, Blumenkranz MS, Moshfeghi DM. Albinism: particular attention to the ocular motor system. Iris color classification scales - then and now. Novel quantitative pigmentation phenotyping enhances genetic association, epistasis, and prediction of human eye colour. Iris color and associated pathological ocular complications: A review of epidemiologic studies. Genome-wide association study in almost 195,000 individuals identifies 50 previously unidentified genetic loci for eye color.
