The human hair follicle, a bistable organ?
March 2012
in “Experimental Dermatology”
TLDR Human hair follicles switch between active and resting phases unpredictably.
The study conducted over 14 years with ten male volunteers, both alopecic and non-alopecic, analyzed 930 individual follicles and about 9000 hair cycles. It found that hair follicle behavior is highly variable and operates independently, suggesting a stochastic rather than a synchronized, cyclical growth pattern. The concept of the hair follicle as a bistable organ, existing in either an active or dormant state with transitions controlled by a lognormal distribution, was introduced. The term "neogen" was coined for the transition phase from telogen to anagen. The study concludes that human hair follicles fluctuate between steady states in a stochastic manner, which could impact our understanding of tissue homeostasis and epithelial-mesenchymal interactions.
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