Scientists have long tried to answer this question, and now we know why.
As you know, our body is made up of many cells. We sometimes call cells “the building blocks of life”. All parts of the body are made of cells combined together.
Have you ever played with Lego? So imagine cells like lego pieces. Like lego pieces, cells can be combined into many blocks of different shapes and colors. Cells can also do many different things.
Your skin is also made up of many different cells, some skin cells make up hair and hair, others make scars when you get injured, for example.
Even blood is made up of different cells. Red blood cells make your blood red.
Now, back to the question of why some parts of the body can regrow (regenerate) and some other parts, if lost, cannot be regenerated. Some cells in our body are special because they can multiply. Not only that, but these particular cells can turn into other cells as well. These special cells are called “stem cells” and they are the key to the internal organs being able to regenerate.
Parts of the human body.
In this article, we use the word “regeneration” to describe the phenomenon where a part of the body can heal itself after an injury or illness.
Skin is an organ that needs regular regeneration. Skin stem cells produce new skin cells when old skin cells die.
Another organ, the liver , regenerates very easily. Liver cells are called liver parenchymal cells . These cells begin to multiply when the liver is damaged. Thus we see that liver parenchymal cells act like stem cells.
The gut is also an organ that can regenerate itself. Even when we are healthy, intestinal cells are constantly multiplying, because intestinal cells are lost in the process of digesting food, so the stem cells in the intestine must multiply to have new cells to replace.
For example, when the brain is damaged, it is difficult for brain cells to grow new cells. That’s because the brain has very few special cells, that is, very few stem cells.
In recent years, we’ve discovered that certain regions of the brain can regenerate, but we still need more research to better understand this.
We still don’t know if the brains of young people regenerate better than those of old people.