Sparking Health: The Electric Pathways Behind Acupuncture’s Healing Power
Your Body’s Bioelectric Highway
For years, when doctors and pathologists examined tissue under the microscope, they noticed tiny spaces and cracks within the connective tissues. They were taught that these gaps were simply side effects caused by the process of fixing, dehydrating, and slicing tissue samples for viewing. Because collagen is tough and brittle when dried, it cracks easily during preparation, so medical training instructed professionals to ignore these irregular spaces and focus only on the cells and structures that remained intact.
That all changed in 2018, when Dr. Neil Theise and his team at NYU Grossman School of Medicine discovered that these “cracks” are the remnants of a vast, living network permeating every corner of the human body.
They coined it the interstitium: a seamless, body-wide network that offers scientific insight into why ancient healing practices like acupuncture are so effective.
A Network Hiding in Plain Sight
The interstitium isn’t confined to fascia or any isolated tissue or organ. It’s everywhere. Think of a honeycomb lattice of fluid-filled spaces supported by resilient collagen bundles.
“There isn’t a tissue that isn’t riddled with the spaces. The interstitium has the ability to communicate through the body across every scale, from the quantum electromagnetic level, all the way up to the cellular level,” Dr. Theise explains.
These spaces weave within and between organs and tissues, creating continuous pathways that connect the body’s periphery to its core. The fascial interstitium blends with the networks around blood vessels, nerves, organs, muscles, and bones, forming a unified bioelectric highway for communication and transport.
The Body’s Built-In Electricity Generator
Here’s where East meets West, and modern science meets ancient medicine. Collagen fibers within the interstitium are highly piezoelectric: when you move, stretch, or apply pressure, these fibers convert physical force into electrical energy.
“Collagen, when you stack it up high enough, becomes a piezo crystal. Any movement of the collagen will generate electrical energy,” says Dr. Theise.
The interstitium’s electrical generation happens independently of the nervous system. Direct mechanical stimulation produces bioelectric currents throughout the body.
Additionally, the interstitial spaces are filled with hyaluronic acid, a gel-like and highly charged substance. This means negatively charged particles can flow throughout the interstitium, transmitting electrical signals rapidly and efficiently across long distances.
A Scientific Perspective on Acupuncture’s Meridian Theory
So what does this mean for acupuncture? Modern science now knows how to explain the anatomical foundation for what Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) described, in its own vernacular, long ago.
✧ Inserting and manipulating an acupuncture needle creates mechanical stress in the connective tissue
✧ This physical stimulation generates electrical currents in collagen, which travel through the seamless interstitium
✧ Because the network is continuous and without boundaries, these signals can reach distant parts of the body, just as acupuncture meridians have long suggested
Advanced imaging has shown how interstitial fluid pathways originate from acupuncture points and extend far from the needle site. Electrical studies consistently find higher conductance at acupuncture points compared to nearby tissues, especially at low frequencies, aligning with biological signaling patterns.
As Andrew Pelling, professor of physics and biology, notes:
“If you want to communicate a signal, mechanics are so efficient. It's no surprise that there are all these highly evolved systems to sense and transmit mechanical information.”
And Dr. Rebecca Wells, a collaborator with Dr. Theise, adds:
“This does suggest that there may be a very clear anatomical mechanism for the way acupuncture works.”
A Holistic View, Grounded in Science
What’s most remarkable about the interstitium is how it dissolves boundaries between different body systems. This electrified network links tissues and organs, surface and depth, much as TCM has described through its language of qi, blood, and meridians. The interstitium reveals true anatomical interconnectedness - an “interface between all of these discrete systems,” as Dr. Theise describes.
This helps explain why stimulating one point on the body can affect organs and tissues in seemingly unrelated locations, providing a physical mechanism for the whole-body effects observed by acupuncture practitioners for thousands of years.
Dr. Theise, a practicing Zen Buddhist, sees parallels between science and spirituality:
“Suddenly, there was an instant bridge between the scientific and spiritual side. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”
The implications reach beyond acupuncture. This seamless, bioelectric network may help explain tissue repair, immune defense, cancer cell movement, and more. For those interested in acupuncture’s healing effects, the interstitium offers both a scientific map and an energetic roadmap, affirming what TCM practitioners have long intuited.
The ancient wisdom of interconnected meridians now has a visible, measurable structure - a body-wide system of living spaces conducting bioelectric signals through every tissue, organ, and cell. The interstitium bridges ancient theory and modern biology and offers a tangible framework for acupuncture’s whole-body effects.
The more we uncover, the clearer it becomes: the body is a profoundly interconnected system, constantly in conversation with itself.
