Going Deep
- marketingc8
- 4 minutes ago
- 3 min read
We spend a lot of time scanning news about human anatomy and related topics.
And recently we noticed that much of the groundbreaking work in human anatomy is going small.
In fact, today’s cutting-edge anatomists are fundamentally redefining how we view the body. We’ve known the major bones, muscles, ligaments, and nerve structures for a long time. These scientists are going deep with microscopy, 3D imaging, and complexity theory.
One example is Dr. Neil Theise, a liver pathologist and professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He’s renowned for co-discovering and defining the interstitium—a body-wide fluid-filled network of connective tissue previously overlooked in textbooks. Dr. Theise is keenly aware of the spaces inside our bodies, the spaces between everything. We recommend watching this hour-long interview with Dr. Theise on the Wild Health Podcast.
Dr. Theise works with complexity theory—a field of study that examines how simple interactions between components within a system can lead to complex overall behavior that is often unpredictable and nonlinear (source: Google). As Dr. Theise points out in the interview, living organisms are not machines. Machines do the same thing over and over again. Human bodies are unpredictable. Theise is also the author of Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being.
Another example is Dr. Maiken Nedergard and her work on the glymphatic system—something she discovered in 2012. The glymphatic system is a brain-wide network that acts as the central nervous system's waste disposal system. By pumping cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) through brain tissue, it clears out harmful metabolic byproducts. It’s primarily active during deep sleep.
The glymphatic system is largely dormant while you are awake. During sleep, brain cells shrink slightly, creating more space between them and allowing CSF to flow through up to 60 percent faster. This makes sleep essential for clearing neurotoxic waste and preventing cognitive decline.
Dr. Nedergaard is a professor in the departments of Neuroscience, Neurosurgery and Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center and Professor of Glial Cell Biology and the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Copenhagen. Want to go deeper? There’s an hour-long presentation on YouTube here.
And then there’s Dr. R. Shane Tubbs, one of the world's leading experts on minor anatomical variations. He’s also the first American editor-in-chief of Gray's Anatomy (they’ve all been British heretofore). He’s also a neurosurgery professor at Tulane University.
His research emphasizes “reverse translational anatomy”—identifying clinical and surgical challenges, then using cadaveric studies to map out minor anatomical differences that cause them.
His work with “minor variations” focuses heavily on reducing surgical complications, preventing wrong-level surgeries, and improving patient outcomes. Dr. Tubbs extensively maps minor variations in cranial foramina (for example, the intermediate condylar canal) and vertebral anomalies (for example, the transitional vertebrae or paracondylar processes). These subtle shifts can critically impact a surgeon's trajectory when placing pedicle screws or performing delicate brain surgery.
In addition, Dr. Tubbs co-authored Bergman's Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Human Anatomic Variation, which acts as a primary reference for clinicians trying to understand whether a patient's unusual symptom is caused by a benign, minor anatomical variation or an actual pathology. A terrific example of how Dr. Tubbs’ thinks is on YouTube here.
Frankly, we’re so impressed with this work. After all, the work understanding how one cell system works is as much human anatomy as is the heart, the supraspinatus, or the tibia.
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