2023-04-20 15:27:27
The change in color of our hair linked to aging results from a depletion of the resources of cells responsible for pigmentation. Researchers specify the mechanism involving melanin-producing stem cells.
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A new American study sheds light on the gray area around the mechanism of “aging” of hair. Posted in Nature, it provides a better understanding of how melanocyte stem cells (melanin producers) color hair gray, then white with age. The phenomenon is directly linked to the loss of plasticity of melanocyte stem cells (MSCs), which normally move along the hair follicle and allow hair pigmentation. According to the authors, the loss of the chameleon function of MSCs could be the cause of graying and loss of hair color.
The natural phenomenon that colors our hair gray over time is called “canitie”. The number of MSCs increases with age, but the cells accumulate in a specific area of the hair follicle and become blocked. They cannot return to the germinal compartment, where proteins normally activate them into pigment cells responsible for hair color.
An experiment on mice transposable to humans
Researchers conducted experiments on mice to better understand what happens when hair ages. They pulled out and forced the regrowth of hair, only to realize that the stem cells housed in the bulb of the follicle went from 15% before hair removal to around 50% with “forced aging”. Unexposed to activating proteins, the melanocyte stem cells no longer produced pigment. In contrast, cells that continued to move continued to mature and produce pigment over the two years of the study.
To reverse or prevent the change in hair pigmentation in humans with age, one possible avenue would be to help blocked cells move between compartments of the developing hair follicle again.
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