You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Anatomy’ category.
Here’s a wonderful article from Time Healthland Ezine revealing how the brain loses consciousness. It looks like the brain functions as a whole or a cluster of relationships and that consciousness is a product of the whole rather than residing in one place like a seat of consciousness – which sits nicely in a holistic model of consciousness being an outcome of cell communication. Read on…
“What happens to your brain as it slips into unconsciousness? A new technique allows researchers to view real-time 3-D images of a patient undergoing anesthesia using the drug propofol, and the findings show that consciousness isn’t suddenly switched off, but rather fades as though a dimmer is being dialed down.
The research also suggests that consciousness resides in the connections between multiple parts of the brain, not in any single region. The images show that changes in the anesthetized brain start in the midbrain, where certain receptors for a neurotransmitter called GABA are plentiful.
It took me a while to really appreciate the venous sinuses. The protocol I was taught was overly complex with lots of difficult handholds – it put me off for years to be honest. Last year I was teaching about the blood flow from the head and I came across a wonderful image in Theime of the jugular veins – the top left image is my attempt to generate a similar view. The image gave me another way into the venous sinuses.
By focusing on differences in flow between the left and right jugular veins, and only really orienting to the sinuses shown above, I found I have much clearer experiences of blood leaving the skull. It is a good orientation and really seems to help people drop into a deep space. I hope it works for you.
- ‘The skull of a man who had been kicked by a horse. This caused a swelling which slowly increased in size; his left eyeball and the jawbone were gradually squeezed outwards. Eventually, the swelling started leaking and began to stink. After 21 years of suffering from the swelling, the man died in 1771. He was dissected by Andreas Bonn.’ Text from exhibition: ‘De ontdekking van de mens. Anatomie verbeeld’ Bijzondere Collecties Dec 2011
Above are images of a skull I saw in an exhibition about representation of the body in Amsterdam at Bijzondere Collecties. You can clearly see how over a period of 21 years the growing swelling caused the bones to grow into a different shape. Bones grow in response to the forces exerted on them – Wolff’s Law.
You would never see a skull like the above in todays world; hopefully modern medicine, and we would say cranial work, would be able to stop the underlying swelling.
In the cranial paradigm the most common conditional forces that distort skulls are due to birth processes and/or head trauma. Unresolved conditional forces from early experiences continue to shape the ongoing dynamic production of bone. The images show that if we change the forces acting on a skull even adult bones will remould themselves.
To book goto www.bodyintelligence.com/postgrads
For Steve’s courses you can also use the following buttons
Working With The Diaphragm
The Nature of Dissociation
The Throat Made Simple
Best thing I have seen on food for ages.
Anatomy of the Human Body, Henry Gray, Ossification of the Hip Bone (Fig. 237)
The hip bone is ossified from eight centers: three primary—one each for the ilium,
ischium, and pubis; and five secondary—one each for the crest of the ilium, the anterior inferior spine (said to occur more frequently in the male than in the female), the tuberosity of the ischium, the pubic symphysis (more frequent in the female than in the male), and one or more for the Y-shaped piece at the bottom of the acetabulum. The centers appear in the following order: in the lower part of the ilium, immediately above the greater sciatic notch, about the eighth or ninth week of fetal life; in the superior ramus of the ischium, about the third month; in the superior ramus of the pubis, between the fourth and fifth months.
At birth, the three primary centers are quite separate, the crest, the bottom of the acetabulum, the ischial tuberosity, and the inferior rami of the ischium and pubis being still cartilaginous.
By the seventh or eighth year, the inferior rami of the pubis and ischium are almost completely united by bone.
About the thirteenth or fourteenth year, the three primary centers have extended their growth into the bottom of the acetabulum, and are there separated from each other by a Y-shaped portion of cartilage, which now presents traces of ossification, often by two or more centers. One of these, the os acetabuli, appears about the age of twelve, between the ilium and pubis, and fuses with them about the age of eighteen; it forms the pubic part of the acetabulum. The ilium and ischium then become joined, and lastly the pubis and ischium, through the intervention of this Y-shaped portion.
At about the age of puberty, ossification takes place in each of the remaining portions, and they join with the rest of the bone between the twentieth and twenty-fifth years. Separate centers are frequently found for the pubic tubercle and the ischial spine, and for the crest and angle of the pubis.
Sphenobasilar junction (SBJ) in sagittal section
I have been going back into biomechanics and have reread a few papers that influenced how I think about the skull and the cranial paradigm. Partly triggered by my periodic reading, like picking at a bad tooth, of skeptical cranial sites. (For example, Steve Hartman is a an osteopath critical of the cranial paradigm, you can access his papers here. )
I have recently discovered Gil Hedley’s videos, just fabulous. This video, ‘The “Fuzz” Speech’, will change your relationship to stretching forever. Check out the fuzzed up left scapula compared to the unfuzzy right scapula about half way through, and then try to not want to move your shoulders.
Mayan skull deliberately moulded post birth
Here’s what a lifetime can do to your sacrum (thanks to Colin Dove):
Steve Haines
Ged Sumner
