Grizzi Fabio, Chiriva-Internati Maurizio
Scientific Direction, Istituto Clinico Humanitas, IRCCS, Via Manzoni 56, 20089 Rozzano, Milan, Italy.
Theor Biol Med Model. 2005 Jul 19;2:26. doi: 10.1186/1742-4682-2-26.
The conception of anatomical entities as a hierarchy of infinitely graduated forms and the increase in the number of observed anatomical sub-entities and structural variables has generated a growing complexity, thus highlighting new properties of organised biological matter.
(1) Complexity is so pervasive in the anatomical world that it has come to be considered as a primary characteristic of anatomical systems. (2) Anatomical entities, when viewed at microscopic as well as macroscopic level of observation, show a different degree of complexity. (3) Complexity can reside in the structure of the anatomical system (having many diverse parts with varying interactions or an intricate architecture) or in its behaviour. Often complexity in structure and behaviour go together. (4) Complex systems admit many descriptions (ways of looking at the system) each of which is only partially true. Each way of looking at a complex system requires its own description, its own mode of analysis and its own breaking down of the system in different parts; (5) Almost all the anatomical entities display hierarchical forms: their component structures at different spatial scales or their process at different time scales are related to each other.
The need to find a new way of observing and measuring anatomical entities, and objectively quantifying their different structural changes, prompted us to investigate the non-Euclidean geometries and the theories of complexity, and to apply their concepts to human anatomy. This attempt has led us to reflect upon the complex significance of the shape of an observed anatomical entity. Its changes have been defined in relation to variations in its status: from a normal (i.e. natural) to a pathological or altered state introducing the concepts of kinematics and dynamics of anatomical forms, speed of their changes, and that of scale of their observation.
将解剖实体概念视为无限渐变形式的层次结构，以及所观察到的解剖子实体和结构变量数量的增加，导致了日益增长的复杂性，从而凸显了有组织生物物质的新特性。
（1）复杂性在解剖学领域中极为普遍，以至于它已被视为解剖系统的一个主要特征。（2）解剖实体在微观和宏观观察层面上显示出不同程度的复杂性。（3）复杂性可能存在于解剖系统的结构中（具有许多不同部分且相互作用各异或架构复杂）或其行为中。结构和行为方面的复杂性通常相伴而生。（4）复杂系统允许有多种描述（看待系统的方式），每种描述都只是部分正确。看待复杂系统的每种方式都需要其自身的描述、自身的分析模式以及自身对系统在不同部分的分解；（5）几乎所有的解剖实体都呈现出层次形式：它们在不同空间尺度上的组成结构或在不同时间尺度上的过程相互关联。
需要找到一种观察和测量解剖实体的新方法，并客观地量化它们不同的结构变化，这促使我们研究非欧几里得几何和复杂性理论，并将其概念应用于人体解剖学。这种尝试使我们思考所观察到的解剖实体形状的复杂意义。其变化已根据其状态的变化来定义：从正常（即自然）状态到病理或改变状态，引入了解剖形式的运动学和动力学概念、其变化速度以及观察尺度。
