by Dr Karen Kirkness, PhD Medical Sciences, MSc Human Anatomy
Can we visualise how our adult bodies spring into form from a single cell? This short blog argues that where embryology is concerned, visualisation is not possible without participation. There are animated videos available that can make aspects of the embryonic journey feel more approachable. However, watching a video can never convey the genuine sense of multidimensional shape change that happens so rapidly during those first eight weeks of development.
As learners, we may be able to memorise words or concepts through passive consumption. But to wrap your head around a sculptural process as nuanced and rapidly changing as the embryo, you must dance with it, building up and taking apart your learning process to make way for the next levels. Just like the embryo is never the same being over time, growing more sophisticated by the hour, the spirit of true learning is similarly ever-evolving. It is a passion that invites us to obliterate the naive aspects of ourselves, which are needed to get a foothold up to a higher state of being.
Compare this obliteration process of adult learning (andragogy) with the obliteration evident in development (embryology). In the embryo, structures materialise and then regress all the time. Consider the gubernaculum, for example, a kind of mesenchymal chute that guides the descent of the testes in the phenotypical male. After descent is complete, the gubernaculum regresses into the remnant testo-scrotal attachment.
Each of us has a necessarily unique approach to making academic studies whole with the experiences we bring to the process. One practical example is using the origami Flexagon to parse out the geometry of the invaginating torus. Making a Flexagon requires full participation and a strong creasing game! As you fold the paper, you are taking part in a meditation on the embryological concept of invagination, which happens during gastrulation. You bring your skillset, attention span, aptitude for connective thinking, dexterity, and everything else that makes you you, to the project.
Gastrulation is the process by which the so-called bilaminar disc becomes a vortex through which a third cell population differentiates itself and proliferates, giving rise to what we call the “mesoderm”. That the embryo spins through itself like a soupy, hallucinating doughnut tornado is very hard to describe without sounding bonkers, so the staid academic tomes leave that part out. Thus, we are left with the term “invagination”. Don’t let this over simplistic term fool you, by the way, it comes from the Latin ‘to put into a sheath.’ OK. But a spinning, toroidal, multidimensional sheath, ahem.
Using folding paper to get to grips with invagination is clearly a kinesthetic learning technique. You’re making it with your hands. But the point of this blog is to emphasise that it pairs well with the phenomenological approach: not only are you learning about the embryo through making a model, you are constructing your own particular version of reality. No two models of reality are the same.
Learn more about the process with me online in my webinar with The Fascia Hub. Members of the Fascia Hub can also access the video tutorial where I walk you through the steps to make your own multidimensional Flexagon.
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