by Manuel Cascioli
During my university years, the study of connective tissue remained a subject limited to a first-year exam, the Histology exam. At that time (alas, prehistoric) it was not known how connective tissue, today called Extracellular Matrix, was a constituent of the living Matrix. This dynamic system allows omnidirectional communication between all tissues of the living organism, even at the cellular level.
Thanks to the living matrix, each cell knows the activities of every other cell. This can happen because the raw structure of the living matrix is represented by the extracellular matrix. Most of the interactions between the different regulatory systems of the organism take place within it, but it is also the site of the storage of toxins responsible for all kinds of alterations and pathologies, even in the intracellular compartments.
The living matrix is made up of three levels that interpenetrate each other: the extracellular matrix, the intracellular matrix and the nuclear matrix. The three levels influence each other, even within their physical-anatomical boundaries. This means that any alteration that occurs outside the cell (extracellular matrix) could have an intracellular or even intranuclear consequence and vice versa. This occurs in any living organism (with the exception of amoeba and other single-celled organisms) because every living being is provided with a cellular protection area interposed between the external environment and the cells. This protection zone is called the extracellular space and does not allow any substance to pass directly from the external environment to the cell.
Every living cell, belonging to any organ or system, will always be surrounded by the matrix, anatomically considered as a thin, three-dimensional, structured biophysical filter that controls both the migration of nutrients and waste products of the cell and the transmission of mediators and any other substance present in the cellular environment. In fact, no substance can pass directly from the bloodstream to the cell and vice versa, even the neurotransmitters released by the nerve cell must reach the cell only through the living matrix.
We often think that the nervous system is the first morpho-functional and structural unit specialized in receiving, transmitting, controlling and processing internal and external stimuli of the body, allowing the living organism to relate to its environment. In truth, this statement partially corresponds to reality. The living Matrix is even faster in terms of communication. The pathways of the living matrix (embryologically speaking) are prior to those of the nervous system. Thanks to the transmission pathways of collagen, a fundamental constituent of the living matrix, it transforms into a tissue continuum for every impulse that originates in the body or for any impulse that is transmitted to the body from any location.
