Some scientific information about Fascia
Taken from “Energy Medicine – The Scientific Basis” di James L. Oschman:
Cell structure and the "living matrix"
One of he most important developments in a recent science is a better understanding of the structure and energetic of the material substrate of the body - the living substrate that is touched and interacted with in all therapeutic approaches. For the hands-on therapist, the energetic properties of this living substance have both conceptual and practical consequences. To understand the new developments, we being with breakthroughts in our understandings of the cell.
A few decades ago, the living cell was visualized as a membrane-bound bag containing a solution of molecules.
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The main reason the image has persisted and can still be found in modern text is that most biochemists were in agreement that life consists of a sequence of chemical reactions taking place in a “soup” or solution within the cell.
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The biochemical image of life is as follows: there are “particles”, the enzymes, proteins, amino acids, sugars, etc. that randomly diffuse about within the enclosed volume of the cell. When appropriate molecules chance to bump into each other, they interact, and chemical bonds are formed or broke. In this way, chemical energy is liberated, living structures are assembled or taken apart, toxins are broken down, and life’s activities are carried out.
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The cell is not a bag
This picture is changing slowly but dramatically because of the discovery that the cell is not a bag of solution. The more closely biologists and microscopists looked at cells, the more structures they found.
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We now know that the cell is so filled with filaments and tubes and fibres and trabeculae – collectively called the cytoplasmic matrix or cytoskeleton – that there is little space left for a solution of randomly diffusing “billiard ball” molecules.
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Continuum
Soon after the cytoskeleton became a popular subject for research, it was realizes that the cellular matrix is connected across the cell surface, with the connective tissue system or excellular matrix. A whole class of “trans-membrane linking molecules or “integrins” has been discovered. Likewise, it is now recognized that the cytoplasmic matrix also links to the nuclear envelope, nuclear matrix, and genes.
Conceptually these discoveries are profoundly important. The boundaries between the cell environment, the cell interior, and the genetic material are not as sharp or as impermeable as we once thought. As a hands-on therapist, what you touch is not merely the skin – you contact a continuous interconnected webwork that extends throughout the body.
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The entire interconnected system has been called the connective tissue / cytoskeleton, or simply, the living matrix. A popular acupuncture text refers to “the web that has not weaver” (Kaptchuk 1983)
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The living matrix is a continuous and dynamic “supramolecular” webwork extending into every nook and cranny of the body: a nuclear matrix within a cellular matrix within a connective tissue matrix. In essence, when you touch a human body, you are touching a continuously interconnected system composed of virtually all of the molecules in the body linked together in an intricate webwork. The living matrix has no fundamental unit or central aspect, no part that is primary or most basic. The properties of the whole net depend upon the integrated activities of all of the components. Effects on one part of the system can, and do spread to others.
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While it is obviously useful to study the various parts and systems of the body, each component can be regarded as a local domain or subdivision of a continuous web. The shape, form, mechanical energetic, and functional characteristics of every cell, tissue, or organ arise because of local variations in the properties of the matrix. The genome, within the nuclear matrix is a subdivision of this network.
Properties of the living matrix
On the basis of the information presented so far, we can begin to form a picture of the energetic systems in the living body. The living matrix continuum includes all of the connective tissues and cytoskeletons of all of the cells through the body. We can summarize its properties as follows:
• All of the great systems of the body – the circulation, the nervous system, the musculoskeletal system, the digestive track, the various organs and glands – are everywhere covered with material that is but a part of a continuous connective tissue fabric.
• The connective tissues form a mechanical continuum, extending throughout the animal body, even into the innermost parts of each cell.
• The connective tissues determine the overall shape of the organism as well as the detailed architecture of its parts.
• All movements, of the body as a whole or of its smallest parts, is created by tensions carried through the connective tissue fabric.
• Each tension, each compression, each movement causes the crystalline lattice of the connective tissues to generate bioelectronic signals that are precisely characterists of those tensions, compressions and movements.
• The connective tissue fabric is a semiconducting communication network that can carry the bioelectronic signals between every part of the body and every other part.
Crystalline arrays in cells and tissues
Form, in contradistinction to random shape, contains parts or elements in a definite, characteristically recurrent array in space. Thus form is the result of the orderly manner in which those elements are combined and arranged. Form of a higher order of complexity accordingly can emerge from the ordered assembly of simpler formed elements of mutual fit (Weiss 1965).
We do not intuitively consider biological material to be crystalline, because when we think of crystals we usually think of hard materials, like diamonds or agate. Living crystals are composed of long, thin, pliable molecules, and are soft and flexible. To be more precise they are liquid crystals (e.g. Bouligand 1978).
Crystalline arrangements are the rule and not the exception in living systems.
Rober O. Becker: the perineural control system
Da “Energy Medicine -The Scientific Basis” by James L. Oschman:
In a series of important articles, Robert O. Becker described the properties of the connective tissue layer surrounding the nervous system, called the perineurium. Every nerve fiber in the body, down to the finest termination, is completely encased in perineural-cells of one type or another Becker recognized a “dual nervous system” composed of the classical digital (all or none) nerve network, the focus of modern neurophysiology, and the evolutionary, more ancient Perineural system, which operates on direct current. The perineural system is a distinct communication system.
One of Becker’s important discoveries is that the perineural system is sensitive to magnetic fields.
The dual nervous system
If a way were devised to dissolve all of the nerves in the brain and throughout the body, it would appear to the naked eye that nothing was missing. The brain and the spinal cord and all of the peripheral nerves would be intact down to their smallest terminations. This is because the central nervous system is composed of two separate types of cells. The nerve cells or “neurons” and the “perineural cells”. The “classical “ nervous system is composed of neurons conducting information from place to place as electrical impulses. The signals are digital or “ all or none” in nature. …..Digital systems provide high speed, high volume information transfer. In terms of evolution and phytogeny, this nervous system is relatively recent innovation. This system is responsible for sensation and movement, and communications are “point-to-point”. In contrast, the perineural nervous system is composed of perineural cells that conduct information from place to place as relatively slowly varying direct currents. These slow waves are analog rather than digital. Analog system cannot transmit large amounts of data, but are ideally suited for precise control of individual functions…..This system is responsible for overall regulation of the classical nervous system, and for regulating wound healing and injury repair. Instead of point to point signaling, information propagated by this system spreads throughout the body.”