Skin quality/thickness and AGA. Are there any studies?

[Serverr]

In a healthy hair follicle cycle the micro environment of the hair follicle communicates with the macro-environment (surrounding tissue). This leads to a tremendous increase of vascularization and adipogenesis in anagen. In telogen there is barely any vascularization at all (almost non-existent) and there is a lack of adipose tissue. These changes lead to a thicker dermis in anagen as you can see on the picture.

Now in AGA you see that the morphology of the hair follicles changes dramatically too. Similar to telogen, but more extreme. Often it is accompanied by inflammation and in late AGA even fibrosis can set in (scar tissue, that can lead to destruction of the hair follicle similar to cicatrial alopecia).

Thus to me it sounds logically that in a bald area the skin is thinner and feels more firm. Although I don't think a study exists that measures the differences in skin thickness.

Thanks for posting that.. Yeah it's almost infuriating that no one is looking in to it

[jamesst11]

This is interesting. Feeling all these scalp sensations, especially over the past few years, has left me wondering about hair loss and vascularization. A follicle that is not producing a fiber doesn't need an ample blood supply, so those vessels are closed off to redirect blood elsewhere, correct. SO, in the event that one starts to regrow hair, through minox or finasteride, there has to be some kind of capillary remodeling, or opening of existing vessels to supply the blood? If this occurs, would you have scalp sensations?

It also reminds me of inflammation. When I had knee surgery I had IDENTICAL feelings as I have had recently in my scalp, just at a larger magnitude. The best way to describe it is, "a slow ant crawling from one point to another directly under your skin".. I would massage my knee and the feeling would go away OR simply move to another location. Is this just stagnant blood working to push through restricted vessels and stimulating neural sensations? It ALWAYS, EVERY DAY, starts at only my left hair line and proceeds towards the middle back. If I scratch it, or massage it, it immediately stops and then proceeds in a different location, as if I just manually moved the blood through a restricted artery. It might sound crazy, but this is the only thing that seems logical to me.

[NeedHairASAP]

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Exp Dermatol. 2016 Jan 19. doi: 10.1111/exd.12941. [Epub ahead of print]
Dermal adipocytes and hair cycling: Is spatial heterogeneity a characteristic feature of the dermal adipose tissue depot?
Kruglikov IL1, Scherer PE2.
Author information
Abstract
Adipocytes are widely distributed in the dermis, in a unique fat depot referred to as dermal white adipose tissue (dWAT). In rodents, dWAT is present as widespread thin layers, whereas in pigs and humans it is present in clusters referred to as "dermal cones" around the pilosebaceous units. This distinct layer of fat cells located above the subcutaneous white adipose tissue is important for proper hair follicle (HF) cycling in rodents. Murine HFs produce spatially restricted synchronous patches after their second postnatal cycle which correlates with a spatial heterogeneity of murine dWAT. Similarly, the cycling of HFs in humans may also be related to the spatial distribution of dWAT, making the difference between murine and human HF cycling of more quantitative than of qualitative nature. This should allow the production of small spatially correlated HF patches in human skin and we propose that this process can be regulated by paracrine signaling and involving a number of signaling modules, including the hedgehog pathway. This pathway is an established player in HF cycling, but is also involved in the regulation of adipogenesis and may therefore be a key regulator of the process across species. We also suggest that the spatial heterogeneity of dWAT is connected not only to HF cycling, but may also be related to other physiological and pathological processes in the skin. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
KEYWORDS:
cycling; dermal adipocytes; hair follicle; human; mosaic; murine; synchronous