Body of Research

In an article by Dr. John M. Ackerman, the subtle energy research initiated by the orthopedic surgeon, Joseph H. Navach, MD, is highlighted. Work, that has focused on a dermal-vascular reflex to an autonomic nervous system response known as the Vascular Autonomic Signal (VAS). VAS palpation has been used for fifty years by thousands of physicians around the world as part of auricular acupuncture and auriculomedicine applications in, or supplementing, their clinical practice. The purpose of the article, a review of hypothesized biophoton/molecular/physiologic aspects of the VAS, clinical utilization of the VAS, and Dopplar documentation of the arterial manifestation of the VAS, is to show use of the VAS as objective evidence of a person’s state of health and/or illness at any moment in time and what traditional and/or complimentary medicine/remedies might be useful. And, that further study of the VAS presents an opportunity for the development of new, inexpensive, non-invasive diagnostic technologies that could evolve from this important clinical palpation.

Navach, who was convinced that homeostasis is governed by a coordinated effect between the central nervous system (particularly the anterior hypothalamus), the endocrine system, the immune system and the autonomic nervous system,[1-2] believed that the VAS — an autonomic response to external stimuli — should be considered as a guide regarding the status of homeostasis. Navach demonstrated VAS responses in primitive phylum (Platyhelminthes and family Trematoda) to acetylcholine and adrenalin that were identical both by direct contact with the worms and also by indirect stimulation via the drug’s electromagnetic resonance.[3] Results indicated that responses in the Platyhelminthes were increased, diminished or even eliminated depending on metal wrappings around the stimuli samples: 1) increased by 50% when stimuli were wrapped in copper screen without grounding; 2) increased by 20% when stimuli were wrapped in solid aluminum; 3) diminished by 30% when stimuli were wrapped in 1 mm lead; And 4) totally eliminated when stimuli were wrapped in 4 mm lead wrap. 

In 1982 Navach completed research with lasers and flatworms to describe how different wave bands and on-off frequencies of a laser stimulated behavioral responses identical to direct or indirect adenergic or cholinergic stimulation.[4] Results which were successfully achieved in additional research with mice and rats using different stimuli, for example electric fields, magnetic fields, propagative electromagnetic fields, and white light passed through Kodak-Wratten filters 44A (adrenergic) and 25 (cholinergic).[5] 

The biophysics involved are shown in related research that has proven organic and inorganic compounds to have inherent electromagnetic resonance, an electromagnetic signature or signal unique to the compound[6,7,8], which are emitted as frequencies respective to the characteristics of the compound plus heat of specific infrared frequencies.[6,7] These frequencies, as documented by Popp, may even be detected as visible light from tissue (cells), and the levels of light illumination differ depending on the health of the tissue.[10,11] Such biophysics are at work from in navigation by migratory birds,[12] near infrared communications across distances of up to a mile in moths,[13] and the resonance between things, such as a study demonstrating the lethal influence of a contaminated tissue culture on another even though each was hermetically sealed and separated from the other.[14]

Navach has claimed to have identified and isolated special compounds, which he called “neurohormones,” that reside, among other anatomic sites, in acupuncture points. He suggested that these neurohormones have the capacity to oscillate when induced by stimulation either by physical contact (i.e. massage, acupuncture, laser) or at distance (i.e. frequency hammer, ampule). These neurohormones, he demonstrated, can be induced to resonate by an external electromagnetic source.[15] Navach believed that the VAS, descriptively, could be explained as information received from an external energy source with either an equivalent or harmonic frequency to a neurohormone. As such, Navach hypothesized that neurohormones are the electro-chemical foundation for transference of electromagentic information and believed that resonating acupuncture points along a meridian rapidly relay information to the brain, with each relay amplifying the power of transmission by a factor of 4. So, Navach theorized, the VAS reflex was completed once the information is received by the sympathetic nervous system.

Utilizing histochemical and magnetochemical investigative techniques, Navach went beyond demonstrations showing that clusters of neurohormones are present at acupuncture points. He also found neurohormone clusters within the surface of epithelial basement membrane, on the surface of melanocytes of the dermis, in the pia mater of the ventral surface of the medulla oblongata, in the pigmented tissue of the choroid of the eye, and on the sheaths of all naturally electroconductive tissues. However, not in nivae, melanomas, or lentigenes. Additionally he identified all neurohormones to have an aromatic biochemical component and that the active component of approximately 50% of neurohormone compounds contained a five member benzine ring in linear array (resembling the compound).

Having also done researched into evolutionary divisions to find that neurohormone receptor sites may change in number indicating they serve as a primitive neurological system, Navach contended that their general function is to initiate and guide healing.[22] In research up to December 1987,  for example, amphibians such as salamanders were shown to have only three of the twenty-four neurohormones identified in mammals. Navach found that resonating neurohormones in collagen facilitate healing (demonstrated by the role they play in the proliferation of mature collagen[20]), that they proliferate at the site of injury repair[24,25,26], and are as indispensable as the five growth hormone factors.[23] He went on to demonstrate that neurohormone compounds (at the cellular level) speed the overall healing process by accelerating the impact of DNA on messenger RNA.[25]

Navach believed that the VAS can be used as a measure of health.[28] For example, he found that even an ill person will have a resting VAS relative to the dynamic state of homeostasis. He set out to quantitatively document such micro information of the arterial pulse wave by recording over the radial artery using infrared reflection and three types of ultrasound: continuous wave form, Dopplar and set angle reflection.[1,2,29]

To validate the findings of Navach and complete much of his research, the author is serving as Director of the International Joseph H. Navach Project, Human Energy Systems Laboratory, University of Arizona-Tucson.

Read the full article at the website for the International Association for Auricular Medicine as originally published in Frontier Perspectives, Center for Frontier Sciences at Temple University, Vo. X, No. 2, Fall, 2001.