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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Sep 20.
Published in final edited form as: Expert Rev Endocrinol Metab. 2018 Sep 20;13(5):225–231. doi: 10.1080/17446651.2018.1517043

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Schematic of hair cortisol from collection to analysis. Systemic cortisol is currently assumed to diffuse from the dermal capillaries to the hair matrix and cortex. Cortisol can also be deposited on the hair cuticle via sweat. Hair is collected from the posterior vertex, as close to the scalp as possible, and then stored until processing. At the analyzing laboratory, hair is washed with isopropanol to remove the sweat-derived cortisol deposited on the hair cuticle. Hair is cut into 1 cm segments, weighed, minced or ground, and then incubated in methanol for cortisol extraction. Methanol solvent is separated from mixture, and then cortisol is obtained after methanol evaporation. Analysis of hair cortisol per 1 cm sample is performed with either enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or liquid-chromatography/tandem mass spectroscopy (LC/MS-MS). This figure was created by Nichole Jonas and Jeremy Swanson using the program, Adobe Illustrator® CS6.