01/10/2026
Fascia and the autonomic nervous system!!…
🌍 Feet on the Ground, Heads Out of the Clouds
Listening carefully to big ideas about fascia and consciousness
I recently watched a conversation on the Anatomical Gangster podcast hosted by Sue Hitzmann, featuring Carol Davis, John Sharkey, Jean-Claude Guimberteau, and Stuart Hameroff. It is an ambitious discussion that moves across fascia research, embryology, consciousness studies, quantum theory, and clinical observation. It is also the kind of conversation that many therapists will find compelling, provocative, and affirming of things they have intuitively felt for years.
Big questions are being asked. Is consciousness confined to the brain, or is it distributed throughout the body? Does fascia play a role beyond structure and support? Could microtubules, quantum processes, and cellular organisation be part of how awareness arises? These are not silly questions. They reflect genuine curiosity and a desire to understand the human organism more fully.
👂 There is value in listening to conversations like this. There is value in hearing different disciplines think out loud together. Progress does not happen by staying inside tidy, already settled boxes.
But listening with interest is not the same as accepting everything we hear as established fact.
🧠 What the conversation brings to the table
Several core themes run through the discussion. One is the idea that fascia is not passive tissue, but an active, responsive, sensory rich network that interacts continuously with the nervous system. Another is the proposal that microtubules, particularly within neurons but also within other cells, may be central to consciousness through quantum processes, as described within the Orch OR framework.
These ideas are then woven together. Because microtubules exist in many cell types, not just neurons, and because cells are embedded within the extracellular matrix, the suggestion is made that consciousness itself might be a whole body phenomenon, not just something that happens in the brain.
At a conceptual level, this is intriguing. At a scientific level, it is where we need to slow down.
🧩 What we already know, without quantum explanations
There is strong evidence that the body shapes experience. Fascia is richly innervated. It contributes to proprioception and interoception. It interacts with the autonomic nervous system. Changes in tissue tone, hydration, inflammation, and load alter sensory input to the brain and influence how safe, threatened, calm, or alert a person feels.
All of this is well supported. None of it is controversial. None of it requires quantum explanations.
Where caution is needed is when physical properties are presented as explanatory mechanisms. Collagen can show piezoelectric behaviour. Hydrated tissues have complex electrical and mechanical responses. These facts alone do not justify claims that fascia functions as a body wide signalling network for consciousness, or that it operates as a biological semiconductor in any meaningful functional sense.
A property is not the same as a pathway.
🧪 Local and global consciousness, and where interpretation creeps in
The discussion introduces the idea of local versus global consciousness, with examples such as wide awake surgery, where a person remains alert while sensation from a region is chemically silenced. This is interesting language, but it is not new biology. Peripheral nerve blockade and central integration already explain this phenomenon very well.
Adding an additional layer of tissue level consciousness does not improve the explanation unless it adds predictive power or clarity. At present, it does not.
Jean-Claude Guimberteau’s observations of living tissue and cellular behaviour are genuinely fascinating. Watching cells move, cluster, and respond within the extracellular matrix naturally invites questions about coordination and organisation. But organised behaviour is not the same as consciousness. Structure, responsiveness, and adaptation do not automatically imply awareness.
🔬 On claims that consciousness lives in fascia, or transfers between organs
One part of the conversation that deserves particular care is the suggestion that consciousness, memory, or aspects of identity might live in fascia or be transferred between organs. This appears most clearly in references to cellular memory, trauma imprints, and anecdotal reports following organ transplantation where recipients describe changes in preferences, emotions, or behaviour.
It is important to acknowledge why these ideas persist. They are not pulled from nowhere.
Organs are not inert. They contain dense autonomic innervation, immune cells, endocrine signalling pathways, and complex sensory feedback loops. Transplantation involves profound physiological stress, long term medication effects, immune modulation, altered autonomic signalling, and major psychological adjustment. Changes in mood, perception, and behaviour after transplantation are therefore not surprising. They are expected.
Memory, however, as understood in neuroscience, is not stored in tissues or organs as discrete transferable units. There is currently no credible evidence that memories, preferences, or conscious traits are encoded in fascia, collagen, or non neural cells in a way that could survive transplantation and integrate into another person’s identity. Anecdotal accounts are powerful, but they are not evidence of mechanism.
Similarly, the idea that consciousness lives in fascia risks confusing influence with origin. Fascia undoubtedly influences experience. It shapes sensory input, interoceptive signals, autonomic tone, and emotional state. These inputs affect how the brain constructs perception and meaning. But influence is not the same as generation.
Why do these ideas take hold so easily?
Partly because we do not yet have a complete theory of consciousness. Gaps invite narrative. When science does not yet offer satisfying explanations, metaphor steps in. Fascia becomes an attractive canvas for meaning because it is everywhere, continuous, difficult to define, and poorly taught. It feels like a cloak that surrounds and connects, which makes it symbolically compelling as a home for consciousness.
There is also a language problem. Reductionist explanations often fail to capture lived experience. People feel emotions in their chest, gut, throat, and tissues. Trauma is experienced bodily. Touch can evoke memory and feeling. When biology struggles to explain experience in a way that feels human, stories fill the gap.
But stories are not mechanisms.
⚖️ Where I land, and where I draw a line
I listen to this conversation with interest. I respect the perspectives offered by all involved. I am glad these discussions are happening.
But I also think we need to be firmer than polite curiosity at the end, because therapists will take ideas like these and repeat them as if they are established science.
It is reasonable to say that embodiment matters. The body shapes perception. Tissue state influences nervous system processing. Experience is not disembodied cognition floating above biology. That message stands on solid ground.
What does not stand on solid ground is the casual slide from ‘fascinating hypothesis’ into ‘this is how it works’. Claims that fascia participates in quantum signalling, or that fascia functions as a coherence field, or that consciousness might live in fascia, are not conclusions. They are speculative frameworks. They may one day be supported, but right now they are not supported at the level implied.
The same applies to grand statements like fascia being ‘the foundation of life’. It is poetic. It is memorable. It sounds profound. But it is also vague. If everything is fascia, then nothing is fascia, and we have stopped doing biology and started doing branding. Fascia is essential connective tissue, yes, but it is not the only essential thing. Nervous tissue, vascular tissue, immune cells, endocrine signalling, epithelial barriers, and metabolic systems are not supporting actors. They are equal partners.
And here is the key point for therapists. When quantum language enters clinical conversation without clear definitions, measurable predictions, or direct evidence, it does not elevate our profession. It makes us easier to dismiss. ‘Quantum’ becomes a costume word, not a mechanism. If we cannot explain what we mean in plain biology, we should not use physics terms to make it sound more credible.
So yes, let’s listen.
Let’s stay curious.
But let’s keep our feet on the ground, and our heads out of the clouds.
Because curiosity without rigour does not move a profession forward. It just gives it better stories.
Watch the podcast here. https://youtu.be/02bAidTpO8Q?si=gSnoz2RT5FiuY45k
