Will Follicles Removed During FUE Grow Back or “Regenerate”?

This question comes from a member of our hair loss social community and discussion forums: 

Will the follicles removed during a follicular unit extraction (FUE) procedure grow back or “regenerate”? Or are these follicles permanently lost once they are removed?

They are “permanently lost.”

Regeneration in the donor area requires splitting the follicle and leaving some portion of stem cells behind while transplanting another portion to the front. This leads to regeneration in the donor region and new growth in the transplanted region. Unfortunately, it is all theoretical at this point. We’ve yet to find a reliable and reproducible method of “donor doubling” – or splitting the follicle and creating two follicles from one.
______________
Blake Bloxham – formerly “Future_HT_Doc”

Editorial Assistant and Forum Co-Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning

Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog, and the Hair Restoration Forum

Follow our community on Twitter

Watch hair transplant videos on YouTube

Technorati Tags: hair loss, follicular unit extraction, FUE