The Enigmatic Reissner’s Fiber and the Origin of Chordates

Reissner’s fiber (RF) is a secreted filament that floats in the neural canal of chordates. Since its discovery in 1860, there has been no agreement on its primary function, and its strong conservation across chordate species has remained a mystery for comparative neuroanatomists. Several findings, including the chemical composition and the phylogenetic history of RF, clinical observations associating RF with the development of the neural canal, and more recent studies suggesting that RF is needed to develop a straight vertebral column, may shed light on the functions of this structure across chordates. In this article, we will briefly review the evidence mentioned above to suggest a role of RF in the origin of fundamental innovations of the chordate body plan, especially the elongation of the neural tube and maintenance of the body axis. We will also mention the relevance of RF for medical conditions like hydrocephalus, scoliosis of the vertebral spine and possibly regeneration of the spinal cord.

A Neurocosmological Neurotheology Organized Around Reissner’s Fiber

Neurotheology is the study of the neurobiological correlates of religious experiences. A key problem for this nascent field is that interpretations of religious experiences range from a regression to the oceanic oneness of the womb to supersensory apprehensions of transcendent realities. Identifying appropriate subjects is therefore problematic. Correlating the complex array of neurobiological data obtained from neuroimaging, genetic analysis and lab tests with such elusive “religious experiences” offers little hope of scientific rigor. This paper proposes a new approach. Mystical traditions have consistently described a “subtle anatomy” organized around a circuit running through the center of the spine that connects the human and the divine. If descriptions of this circuit are based on actual interoceptions, then it corresponds to a little-known, epigenetically suppressed structure that ensheathes the central axis of the central nervous system; Reissner’s fiber (RF). Rather than identifying subjects based on self-reporting and correlating their experiences with an array of neurobiological data, this new approach would regenerate the fiber, measure its activity and explore possible correlations with religious experiences.

The Broken Thread of Asian Culture

Sociobiology derives its atheistic stance from the Darwinian framework of purposeless, naturally selections of random variations of matter in motion. However, explanatory gaps in sociobiology’s explanation of religion, from the initial cosmic singularity to free will, invite a Divine foot in the door. By interpreting yogic, Taoist and Kabbalistic descriptions of the anatomical connection between the human and the divine not as primitive, poetic metaphors but as interoceptions of a little-known, enigmatic, epigenetically suppressed, structure running through the central axis of the central nervous system called Reissner’s fiber. I propose a new theistic sociobiological theory of religion. Justified belief in this theory could epigenetically reawaken the suppressed Reissner’s fiber genes and begin the empirical testing of the theory.