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Nature Research, Scientific Reports, 1(11), 2021

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-90409-x

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High-throughput phenotyping methods for quantifying hair fiber morphology

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

AbstractQuantifying the continuous variation in human scalp hair morphology is of interest to anthropologists, geneticists, dermatologists and forensic scientists, but existing methods for studying hair form are time-consuming and not widely used. Here, we present a high-throughput sample preparation protocol for the imaging of both longitudinal (curvature) and cross-sectional scalp hair morphology. Additionally, we describe and validate a new Python package designed to process longitudinal and cross-sectional hair images, segment them, and provide measurements of interest. Lastly, we apply our methods to an admixed African-European sample (n = 140), demonstrating the benefit of quantifying hair morphology over classification, and providing evidence that the relationship between cross-sectional morphology and curvature may be an artefact of population stratification rather than a causal link.