"If anthropomorphizing a body part is wrong, I don’t want to be right"

November 19, 2023 6:39 PM

The Interstitium

Invisible Landscapes

...In this episode we introduce you to a part of our bodies that was invisible to Western scientists until about five years ago; it’s called "the interstitium," a vast network of fluid channels inside the tissues around our organs that scientists have just begun to see, name, and understand. Along the way we look at how new technologies rub up against long-standing beliefs, and how millions of scientists and doctors failed to see what was right in front (and inside!) of their noses. We also find out how mapping the anatomy of this hidden infrastructure may help solve one of the fundamental mysteries of cancer, and perhaps provide a bridge between ancient and modern medicine.

Scientific American: Meet Your Interstitium, a Newfound "Organ"

posted by y2karl (19 comments total)

Interstitium? Hell it damn near killed 'im
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:08 PM on November 19, 2023 [9 favorites]

I listened to this Radiolab episode couple days ago and it's still blowing my mind.
posted by cnidaria at 7:13 PM on November 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

But I hardly have room for the organs I already have!
posted by mittens at 7:27 PM on November 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

The human body contains too many moving parts.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:00 PM on November 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

There is a bit of a tearjerker close to end, just as a heads-up to people who specifically decide to listen radiolab (over, say, this American life) in order to hopefully avoid crying

Not a criticism! It's a very good episode.
posted by Baethan at 9:01 PM on November 19, 2023

Yeah, nah, scientists already knew about the insterstitium. In the OED, it is first attested in 1949.* The new part is being able to study real-time fluid movements and calling it an organ. Things don't appear and disappear when naming conventions change: see Pluto.

The interstitium is a part of every anatomy and pathology textbook long before this article. It's a key factor in calculating the amount of IV fluid to give. It is nice to drum up interest in science and medicine, but not at the cost of eroding truth.
posted by dum spiro spero at 10:50 PM on November 19, 2023 [13 favorites]

That Orion article is a big yikes, right there.
posted by groda at 12:25 AM on November 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

All I know is that interstitium will absolutely be used as the name for some upcoming AI project and/or Netflix series
posted by revmitcz at 12:56 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

The new part is being able to study real-time fluid movements and calling it an organ.

Well, the new part was the major point of articles linked or looked at: it is an organ. For example, the following seemed a bit too dry as well as way way over-the-top overkill in scientific TMI for the average pig ignorant member [i.e. me] to add to the post:

Confocal laser endomicroscopy (pCLE) provides real-time histologic imaging of human tissues at a depth of 60–70 μm during endoscopy. pCLE of the extrahepatic bile duct after fluorescein injection demonstrated a reticular pattern within fluorescein-filled sinuses that had no known anatomical correlate... 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.

Structure and Distribution of an Unrecognized Interstitium in Human Tissues

It's not unlike talking about quantum physics. There are physicist types and then there are Marianne Williamson types.
posted by y2karl at 2:22 AM on November 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

At the interface between the science and the woo: It's all holey, holey, holey....
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:56 AM on November 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

if i try to beat a metaphor to death

will its nasty reductionist western collagen layer attempt to protect it in a futile attempt to stave off death and convert us all to soulless accountants

or

will its eastern holistic connection to the vast network of tubular fractals allow it to touch the source and become one with the universe therby allowing me to feel its impact on my homebrew kombucha in my yoga studio
posted by lalochezia at 5:05 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

No, no, no. They did not find a new organ and christen it the interstitium. In the researchers' own words this research was a: "a novel expansion and specification of the concept of the human interstitium." It's a new understanding of a void layer in the lining of known organs, specifically the submucosa of ducts and vessels in the liver, bladder, skin, lung, soft tissue, and fascia. If we start defining organs within organs, it's turtles all the way down.

Full abstract:
Confocal laser endomicroscopy (pCLE) provides real-time histologic imaging of human tissues at a depth of 60–70 μm during endoscopy. pCLE of the extrahepatic bile duct after fluorescein injection demonstrated a reticular pattern within fluorescein-filled sinuses that had no known anatomical correlate. Freezing biopsy tissue before fixation preserved the anatomy of this structure, demonstrating that it is part of the submucosa and a previously unappreciated fluid-filled interstitial space, draining to lymph nodes and supported by a complex network of thick collagen bundles. These bundles are intermittently lined on one side by fibroblast-like cells that stain with endothelial markers and vimentin, although there is a highly unusual and extensive unlined interface between the matrix proteins of the bundles and the surrounding fluid. We observed similar structures in numerous tissues that are subject to intermittent or rhythmic compression, including the submucosae of the entire gastrointestinal tract and urinary bladder, the dermis, the peri-bronchial and peri-arterial soft tissues, and fascia. These anatomic structures may be important in cancer metastasis, edema, fibrosis, and mechanical functioning of many or all tissues and organs. 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.
posted by dum spiro spero at 6:34 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think radiolab pretty much expressed that. They said we knew it was there, you can see it with the naked eye, we just didn't think it mattered. We didn't know that there was stuff we didn't know about it.

("We" being general, I personally don't know diddly about squat.)

The one point of confusion is about the naming, imo. I didn't get the impression that it was already called the interstitium from the episode.
posted by Baethan at 6:49 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

it's turtles all the way down

well, that would explain this weird lump, certainly
posted by mittens at 8:59 AM on November 20, 2023

I’m gonna have to agree with dum spiro spero on this one. As much as I hate to be a nattering nabob of negativism, the interstitial space has long been known about in physiology and has long been considered when calculating things like fluid requirements and volume of distribution of drugs. And the presence of collagen as part of the interstitial space has also been known and been used to manipulate the spread of local anesthetics in tissue by adding an enzyme that breaks down collagen (hyaluronidase) to increase the spread of the anesthetic in tissues. Since I don’t have a subscription to the OED I can’t get a lot of details, but the adjectival form of the word, “interstitial” has been in use in pathology and physiology since the late 1700s, and “ The earliest known use of the word interstitial is in the mid 1600s.

OED's earliest evidence for interstitial is from 1646, in the writing of Thomas Browne, physician and author.”

Learning more about the interstitial space is a good thing, but it isn’t exactly a quantum leap in knowledge. On the other hand, anything that puts the discipline of anatomy into the public eye is good. A knowledge of anatomy is essential for physicians (among others) but interest in becoming an anatomy PhD is at a 50 year low, with only 8 anatomy PhDs graduating in the US in 2017. If this news sparks an interest in anatomy as a career, perhaps a little puffery is worth it.
posted by TedW at 10:22 AM on November 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

And that Orion article is so credulous I almost couldn’t read it. My critique of it would be longer than the article itself, so let’s just say I didn’t care for it and leave it at that.
posted by TedW at 10:27 AM on November 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

This was the most interesting episode of Radiolab in a verrrrrrrry long time. And seconding that this organ was know. What's new-ish is that there is understanding about (maybe) what it's doing in terms of channeling things like cancer cells to metastasize. I also loved the very speculative info on how these channels might map onto traditional treatments like acupuncture. Fabulous.
posted by bluesky43 at 11:27 AM on November 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

We've "always" (I started medical school in the mid 1980s) known that the interstitium was there. We call it the "third space", after blood and intracellular. We just didn't know that there was a structure to it. I've put the Nature article (linked above) in my reading queue (for what that's worth).
posted by neuron at 12:04 PM on November 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

The age of aquarias? I feel the need to throw something.
posted by blue shadows at 9:38 PM on November 20, 2023 [1 favorite]