What You See is What You Understand: How Changes in Dissection Techniques Have Informed Our Understanding of What We Perceive in Anatomy

Abstract

Dissection can reveal or obscure aspects in our understanding of the human body. Destroying one part of the connected form in order to reveal a particular perception of the body system is, by nature, part of dissection technique. However, our understanding of the body has continued to change based on techniques from fresh tissue to shellacked, embalmed, semi‐fixed, plastinated and more. This raises the question of how much of our perception of the human body at any one point is based on technique and approach or our desire to see and name in a defined manner. Does one influence the other? Anatomists during the Renaissance, for example, worked with fresh tissue, and artists portrayed the musculoskeletal system, as well as the importance of connection and fascia in their movement‐filled illustrations. Modern techniques from decellurization to plastination have created newer fascial models, reversing the thought process of figure/ground perception of our previously muscle‐focused atlases. For example, the interstitium was recently named a new organ, based on fresh tissue samples that allowed the ability to see 3D fluid‐filled spaces in what was previously flattened in preserved tissue. While anatomy remains a key component of medical school training, it is widely documented that time spent in a physical dissection lab is decreasing. With less time in lab, are key components of three‐dimensional learning being lost, or simply not “seen” based on preserved tissue cadavers? Three‐dimensional computer models are stunning in the process to bring learning to areas that have low access to donation programs, but the computer scans are still based on a limited number of forms and may choose to obliterate certain tissues. Additionally, the loss of touch and fine motor skill that is practiced in cadaver lab is difficult to reproduce in a virtual model. Through a survey of anatomical illustrations, engravings, drawings and photography, it is evident that this raises questions on our past anatomical history to the importance of how our anatomy models of the future (from virtual reality to synthetic cadavers) may once again influence how we perceive the body, particularly in relationship to fascia.