Zomb-hair A very close-up scene from the hit TV series ‘The Walking Dreads&

  Zomb-hair

A very close-up scene from the hit TV series ‘The Walking Dreads’

ihisto

This is actually a vibrissae hair follicle from the face of a (a whisker).

Vibrissae are sensory hairs that are different from regular body hairs in the fact that they are surrounded by a blood filled sinus (z’s brain) and are associated with sensory neurons that have a distinct and representative pattern in the somatosensory cortex of the mouse brain. The fact that they are well mapped in the brain illustrates their importance in everyday behavior and survival - they are involved in things like detecting, orienting and sensing length of surfaces/objects and tracking (e.g. finding gaps in a maze and answering the question 'can my head fit through here?’).

Note also the sebaceous glands (z’s eyes) which secrete a lipid rich secretion called sebum for maintaining hair and epidermis keratin (keratin is the wispy stuff lining the skin at the bottom of the image and forming z’s lil arms).
The hair in this follicle is absent as you can see z’s wailing mouth is completely empty (where you might expect to see the shaft of a hair).

The closest things us humans have to vibrissae are the thick long hairs in our nostrils which are fairly sensitive to tickles (and make your eyes water if plucked) but more importantly provide a first line of filtration to prevent big particles from being inhaled into your nasal cavity.

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