Hair growth tagged posts

Hair-raising research: Scientists find surprising Link between Inmune System, Hair Growth

Glucocorticoid hormone signal in regulatory T cells promotes hair follicle stem cell activation and new hair growth. Left: After hair loss, skin cells (blue) from a normal mouse can activate hair follicle stem cells (red). Right: Cells from mice without glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells cannot activate hair follicle stem cells.

Study highlights how current treatments for alopecia work on a cellular level. Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss...

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The Hair-raising Reason for Goosebumps

The hair follicle under the microscope, with the sympathetic nerve in green and the muscle in magenta.
Credit: Hsu Laboratory/Harvard University

The same cell types that cause goosebumps are responsible for controlling hair growth. If you’ve ever wondered why we get goosebumps, you’re in good company — so did Charles Darwin, who mused about them in his writings on evolution. Goosebumps might protect animals with thick fur from the cold, but we humans don’t seem to benefit from the reaction much — so why has it been preserved during evolution all this time?

In a new study, Harvard University scientists have discovered the reason: the cell types that cause goosebumps are also important for regulating the stem cells that regenerate the hair follicle and hair...

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Blocking Enzymes in Hair Follicles promotes Hair Growth

Within 3 weeks, mice that received topical ruxolitinib or tofacitinib had regrown nearly all their hair (right photo; drug was applied only to the right side of the mouse). Little to no hair growth occurred in control mice during the same timeframe (left photo). Credit: From S. Harel et al., Sci. Adv. 1, e1500973 (2015). Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). 10.1126/sciadv.1500973

Within 3 weeks, mice that received topical ruxolitinib or tofacitinib had regrown nearly all their hair (right photo; drug was applied only to the right side of the mouse). Little to no hair growth occurred in control mice during the same timeframe (left photo). Credit: From S. Harel et al., Sci. Adv. 1, e1500973 (2015). Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). 10.1126/sciadv.1500973

2 FDA-approved drugs reawaken dormant hair follicles. Inhibiting a family of enzymes inside hair follicles that are suspended in a resting state restores hair growth, a new study has found...

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