When a piece of skin, muscle, bone, nails, or hair gets removed or damaged, those usually grow back like nothing happened. So, why isn’t it possible for hands, or even something smaller like a finger to regrow? Or would a piece of meat just regrow there instead of something useful?
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First of all, it is possible for children to regrow their fingertips, the liver can regenerate, and the hippocampus can undergo neurogenesis.
Because fingernails are always regrowing, stem cells are located in the nail beds of the finger nails. And children are in the life cycle phase of their lives when they are literally growing their bodies. The increased presence of stem cells in the nail beds is what makes it possible for children to regrow their fingertips.
But if you cut off too much finger or even an entire hand, there isn’t a convenient bed near the injury where stem cells would naturally gather to regrow the lost body part, and we don’t know what other conditions may be needed to make that regrowth happen once your body has decided that it is finished growing that part of the body. If these secrets are someday unlocked, it may become possible to regrow more than just hands.
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