​“It is refreshing to see science is finally catching up to what I’ve been teaching in my Myofascial Release seminars for the last 40 years. The fascial system is one of the most important structures of our body and is significantly tightened from physical or emotional trauma which produces crushing pressure on pain sensitive structures. It produces symptoms of pain, headaches, fibromyalgia and a myriad of women’s pain and health problems.  The fascinating fascia is a liquid crystal three dimensional web. In the space of the web, which is actually not space, but a fluid/viscous substance called the ground substance of the fascia which tends to solidify due to trauma and is the main transport medium of our body. This means that whatever nutrition we ingest, the fluid we drink, the air we breathe, all the biochemistry hormones and information/energy that every one of the trillion of cells needs to thrive must go through the fluidity of the fascia.” “I would highly recommend purchasing Dr. Jean-Claude Guimberteau’s book, Architecture of Human Living Fascia. He is a French hand surgeon and he represents over 20 years of research on the fascial system. If you go to page 163, I have provided a more detailed explanation of the fascial system and Myofascial Release.”-John F. Barnes

“Thank you for sending me this article that seems to cause a buzz.   It actually calls for some comments.
The summary of this article is « In sum, we describe the anatomy and histology of a previously unrecognized, though widespread, macroscopic, fluid-filled space within and between tissues, a novel expansion and specification of the concept of the human interstitium. »
Writing that it is "unrecognized" can actually make me smile and it will quickly be demonstrated by dozens of articles written in French and English, by 7 produced films as well as books which have already highlighted this multifibrillar interior architecture in a very clear way thanks to micro endoscopy in living human patients.
It must also be remembered that many present (Myers, Hedley, Sharkley etc.) and former anatomists, pathologists have already mentioned this organization.  So, it is only one more works on this subject, nothing else, but certainly well promoted.
But the most important fact and which annoys me the most, is firstly that a so - called serious magazine like Nature allows to publish an article by making such an advertisement of novelty, of discovery, without making a survey of the international publications already published on the subject. It does not take into account all the congresses already organized like FRC (which has promoted research on this topic for many years) and without trying to know the state of art on these subjects. This is a great negligence related to the so-called seriousness of the magazine. This is close to the very fashionable "fake news".
Secondly what leaves me speechless is the title "a novel expansion, a new organ". It questions me about the competence of the reviewers who have read this article for the journal Nature. Because this is the demonstration of a total ignorance of what a human body is, of its globality, of its continuity, of its anatomy, of its embryology (I share a lot of Jaap Van der Val’s email). It is a true demonstration of a total incompetence.
Finally, what makes me happy is to see that the multifibrillar network observed in vivo that I have been talking about for 15 years is a concrete reality that, with the upcoming technical developments, will be confirmed, enriched, and finally accepted as what many of you call the fascia.
This also questions our ability to put forward our ideas, to synthesize and communicate them in a better way. This could be an important point to think about for FRC Berlin 2018.”- J.C. GUIMBERTEAU M.D.

​The imaging technique used by the New York University School of Medicine to look at the tissue they identified as a “new organ” is called Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy. The main difference is you get an in-focus 3-dimensional view of living cells. A phosphorescent dye is absorbed by the proteins in the tissue sample. This lights up when struck by a laser.  Each point is measured by a scanning device to form one layer of the picture. This same thing is done at multiple layers, so you get a focused 3-dimensional view of the structures built by computer image construction much like a 3-dimensional MRI.
In the past they have been identifying the fascial matrix around the cells as individual cell membranes connected to each other. The difference in this study is they realized this was an independent microtubule matrix separate from the cell membrane formed by a continuous network of tubes filled with fluid.
An organ is defined as “a part of an organism that is typically self-contained and has a specific vital function.” The fascial system, since it is all connected, would be self-contained and certainly provides many vital functions.
The recognition of this aspect of human anatomy is a major shift in the understanding of cellular function. The work of Dr. Pollack at the University of Washington provides the physics of how fluid moves through that system and provides a direct scientific connection between what we do as myofascial release therapists and its influence on this “new” organ.