Myofascial meridians

Myofascial meridians (also known as anatomy trains, connective tissue planes, fascial planes, or myofascial trains) are lines of bones and connective tissue that run throughout the body, organize the structural forces required for motion, and link all parts of the body. They can be described as lines of tensegrity (tensional integrity) in the connective tissues of the body.

History
The idea of myofascial meridians were first introduced by Thomas Myers in his 1997 article "The anatomy trains". In his 2001 textbook Anatomy Trains - Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists, the term "myofascial meridians" was first used synonymously with the term "Anatomy Trains". Myers claimed to have developed the ideas of myofascial meridians during the 1990s as a game for his students to play when while teaching "Fascial Anatomy" at the Rolf Institute.

Myers claims myofascial meridians were described by German anatomist Hermann Hoepke in the early 1930s.

Research
Thomas Myers claimed that while Anatomy Trains have "perhaps some overlap with the meridians of acupuncture ... the two are not equivalent."

In a 2002 paper researchers Helene M. Langevin and Jason A. Yandow proposed that "acupuncture needle manipulation produces cellular changes that propagate along connective tissue planes." The paper also proposed that acupuncture meridians are "proposed anatomical/physiological equivalents" of connective tissue planes. Their research does not make reference to Thomas Myers work.

In 2009, Peter Dorsher tested how well myofascial meridians, as described in Anatomy Trains, corresponded with the 12 Principle Meridians of acupuncture. He concluded: "The strong correspondence of the distributions of the acupuncture and myofascial meridians provides an independent, anatomic line of evidence that acupuncture Principal Meridians likely exist in the myofascial layer of the human body"