Summary: Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) techniques have been widely proposed as a means to improve capacity and reliability of wireless channels, and have become the most promising technology for next generation networks. However, their practical deployment in current wireless devices is severely affected by antenna correlation, which reduces their impact on performance. One approach to solve this limitation is relaying diversity. In relay channels, a set of $N$ wireless nodes aids a source-destination communication by relaying the source data, thus creating a distributed antenna array with uncorrelated path gains. In this paper, we study this multiple relay channel (MRC) following a decode-and-forward (D\&F) strategy (i.e., regenerative forwarding), and derive its achievable rate under AWGN. A half-duplex constraint on relays is assumed, as well as distributed channel knowledge at both transmitter and receiver sides of the communication. For this channel, we obtain the optimum relay selection algorithm and the optimum power allocation within the network so that the transmission rate is maximized. Likewise, we bound the ergodic performance of the achievable rate and derive its asymptotic behavior in the number of relays. Results show that the achievable rate of regenerative MRC grows as the logarithm of the Lambert W function of the total number of relays, that is, $\cal C=\log _{2}(W_{0}(N))$. Therefore, D\&F relaying, cannot achieve the capacity of actual MISO channels.