Can You Describe The Life Cycle Of Human Hair?

Nano-technology has opened up a whole new dimension to the study of that which is existent, but not open for detailed observation or study on account of size. A nanometer can measure up to one billionth of a meter! This technology has made it possible to study and conduct research on various parts of the human anatomy that were considered too tiny and complex like the cells and hair.

There is very little known about human hair stem dynamics because manipulations resulting from experiments are impractical. With human hair being 100,000 nanometers wide, the study is recent. Hair is the filamentous outgrowth of dead cells from the skin. The basic and primary component of hair is keratin. Keratin is a protein, a long chain of polymers of amino acid. This forms the cytoskeleton of all epidermal cells. A cytoskeleton is a miniature skeleton within a cell.

Hair stem latency differs in the various tissues, from person to person. The hair cycle is a complex pattern. Epigenetic molecular clocks indicate mitotic ages for hair on the head, irrespective whether the person is young or old. These mitotic ages are consistent, restarting with each new hair and the genealogy is written by the somatic cell genomes. Hair repeatedly falls on account of the follicles exhibiting growth. The life cycle of hair involves growth or anagen, degeneration or catagen and rest or telogen.