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Updated: Aug 10, 2026
11:38
Combining Microfluidics and Microrheology to Determine Rheological Properties of Soft Matter during Repeated Phase Transitions
Published on: April 19, 2018
Dissipative Structures and Interstitial Gel Phase Transition: Prigogine's Internal Time as a Framework for
1Miyama Hospital, Iwate, Japan.
Bio Systems
|August 8, 2026
Summary
Chronic diseases may stem from interstitial gel collapse, hindering cellular entropy export and internal time. Restoring the gel
Area of Science:
- Soft-matter physics
- Thermodynamics
- Systems biology
Background:
- The interstitial matrix acts as a polyanionic hydrogel in connective tissue.
- This hydrogel undergoes volume phase transitions (VPT) between swollen and collapsed states.
- These transitions are crucial for cellular function and thermodynamic regulation in living systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose that interstitial gel VPT is the mesoscale mechanism for thermodynamic closure in living tissue.
- To reframe chronic disease as a thermodynamic state characterized by gel collapse.
- To explore the implications for understanding and treating chronic diseases.
Main Methods:
- Applying Tanaka's (1978) synthetic gel VPT principles to biological systems.
- Extending Prigogine's thermodynamic framework to biological systems.
- Identifying structural correspondence between gel phase transitions and dissipative structures.
Main Results:
- Interstitial gel collapse physically isolates cells, attenuating dissipative structures and internal time.
- Chronic disease is characterized by reduced cellular entropy-export capacity due to gel collapse.
- Clinical features of chronic disease are signatures of attenuating internal time.
Conclusions:
- Chronic disease is a thermodynamic state, not solely molecular lesions.
- Therapeutic intervention should aim to restore thermodynamic openness by returning the gel to its swollen phase.
- This approach could restart the conditions for the living system's temporal self-organization.
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