The extracellular matrix and cells revealed through endoscopy – with accompanying videos website by Jean-Claude GUIMBERTEAU & Colin ARMSTRONG
This richly illustrated book, with accompanying website, presents Dr Guimberteau’s groundbreaking work, and explains its significance for manual therapists and movement teachers, and its implications for what they do with patients and clients.
Dr Guimberteau is the first person to film living human tissue through an endoscope in an attempt to understand the organisation of living matter. He has developed his own concept of the multifibrillar structural organisation of the body, of which the microvacuole is the basic functional unit. He has also developed a concept of global dynamics and continuous matter.
This beautifully illustrated book provides an introduction to Dr Guimberteau’s groundbreaking work. Based on what can be seen he has developed his own concept of the multifibrillar structural organisation of the body, wherein the “microvacuole” is the basic functional unit. His films confirm the continuity of fibres throughout the body thereby seeming to confirm the tensegrity theory, which provides the basis of many manual therapy and bodywork teachings. His work ties in with that of Donald Ingber on tensegrity within the cytoskeleton, and adds to the evidence linking the cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix as described by James Oschman.
The book provides, for the first time, an explanatory introduction and explanation of these theories. This material will be highly valued by osteopaths, massage therapists, chiropractors and others as it provides part of the scientific underpinning of their techniques, as well as an explanation of what is happening when they use those techniques to treat their clients.
His films confirm the continuity of fibres throughout the body and show how adjacent structures can move independently in different directions and at different speeds while maintaining the stability of the surrounding tissues. This role is carried out by what he calls the “Microvacuolar Collagenic Absorbing System” He has opened a window into a strange world of fibrillar chaos and unpredictable behaviour, and has revealed the morphodynamic nature of the fibrils that constitute the connective tissue, as well as the fractal, non-linear behaviour of these fibrils.
Guimberteau’s material confirms what manual therapists already believed but didn’t fully understand. He has provided an explanation of how fascial layers slide over each other and how adjacent structures can move independently in different directions and at different speeds while maintaining the stability of the surrounding tissues.