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Mouse hair turns gray when certain stem cells get stuck

Pigment-producing stem cells must keep moving and changing to give hair its natural color

An overhead photo of a mouse with gray hair on a light blue background.

Prematurely gray mice (like this one shown from earlier research) can help reveal why hair changes color.

M.L. Harris et al/PLOS Biology 2018

By Tina Hesman Saey

Hair might go gray when stem cells with wanderlust have their travels interrupted.

Stem cells involved in making the pigment that gives hair its color behave much differently than other stem cells do, researchers report April 19 in Nature.