Hair of head at a glance
- What it is
- The hair of the head is made of keratinised hair shafts growing from follicles in the scalp.
- Location
- It covers the scalp, with follicles in the dermis and subcutaneous tissue.
- Function
- It provides insulation and protection from sunlight and trauma.
- Body system
- Skin · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA54241 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Hair grows in cycles of anagen, catagen and telogen.
- Arrector pili muscles are smooth muscle controlled by sympathetic nerves.
- Colour is from melanin.
Clinical relevance
Alopecia is hair loss.
Structures next to the hair of head
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Posterior commissure · nervous
- Pineal body · endocrine
- Choroid plexus of cerebral hemisphere · nervous
- Commissure of fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Superior colliculus · nervous
- Cerebral aqueduct · nervous
- Brachium of inferior colliculus · nervous
- Third ventricle · nervous
- Thalamus · nervous
- Midbrain · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Hair of head (FMA54241). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §5.1 Layers of the Skin. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.