RESEARCH & SCIENCE
A new map of the living
autonomic nervous system.
Autonomic science has been constructed on neuroanatomical maps derived primarily from cadaver dissection that cannot map the fine fiber networks that constitute the living dynamism of the afferent ANS. The autonomic nervous system — observed in vivo, in real clinical encounters, across thousands of cases — behaves quite differently than those maps predict.
The Autonomics research program begins with the gap between observed clinical phenomena and the neural and neurochemical cartography that purports to undergird it. It documents what the living system actually does, elaborates a refined three variable autonomic context-sensing, neurological, and neurochemical framework that accounts for those observations, and builds the diagnostic and taxonomic infrastructure a new clinical science requires.
The work is published as preprints while peer-reviewed submission proceeds.
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published on Researchgate.
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extending the foundation model and its implications.
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from 50 countries around the world.
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spanning 25 disciplines in the healing arts– from neurophysiology to developmental biology to connection science to deep ecology to mindful awareness to Indigenous Lifeways to data science – and 24 cultures, many of them Indigenous.
PUBLISHED RESEARCH
Building the field from the ground up.
Seven published papers. Eight in preparation. A systematic research program that begins with the foundational map of the living autonomic nervous system and extends through its diagnostic methodology, its neuroanatomy and neurochemistry, its re-interpretation of disease etiology, and its implications for clinical praxis.
FOUNDATION
June 2026- Epistemology & History of Science
Forest Not Lumberyard: Methodological Bias, Structural Error, and a Necessary Transformation of the Epistemic Ground of Autonomic Neuroanatomy
The most foundational argument in the program. Identifies four compounding sources of structural error in the field's neuroanatomical maps and makes the case for building from different epistemic ground.
September 2025- Autonomic Neuroanatomy
Visual representation of the foundation model. For those who prefer to see the architecture before reading the argument.
Towards an Accurate In Vivo Reconceptualizing of Autonomic State
September 2025- Autonomic Neuroanatomy
The foundational paper. Introduces the three-system model, the three-variable construction of autonomic state, and the clinical validation dataset. This is the foundation map the subsequent papers extend.
Autonomics Poster — Foundation Model
CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
October 2025- Clinical
A Typology of Chronic Defensive Autonomic States as Specific Antecedents to Disease Etiology
Approximately 80% of primary care presentations are stress-related. This paper provides what has been missing: a specific taxonomy linking chronic autonomic states to disease categories, and a corresponding framework for more targeted intervention.
DIAGNOSTICS
October 2025- Autonomic Diagnostics
Autonomic Diagnostics: Towards Accurate In Vivo Autonomic Measurement
HRV has become the de facto standard for autonomic measurement. This paper identifies its structural limitations and proposes a more accurate alternative grounded in direct in vivo observation.
METHODOLOGY
March 2026- Methodology
Autonomic Tracking: Methodological Viability of an Alternative Epistemological Approach
The epistemological argument for hard-ground tracking as a valid mode of in vivo autonomic observation — and a methodological defense of the approach underlying this research program.
FIELD POSITIONING
October 2025- Autonomic Diagnostics
Moving Past the Polyvagal Controversy: An Expanded Clinical Framework for Observing Autonomic State
with Heather MacDuffie, PhD
Polyvagal theory has shaped a generation of clinical practice. This paper addresses the controversy directly and introduces the Autonomics framework as an expanded model that supersedes the debate.
THE FOUNDATION
Built from primary observation.
The Autonomics model was not derived from existing literature. It was built from direct clinical observation, cross-cultural validation, and a crowdsourced dataset assembled specifically to avoid the sampling biases that have shaped Western autonomic science.
This is not a revision of existing theory. Part of our research program is ground-clearing work the field has deferred. The Autonomics framework identifies four compounding sources of structural error in foundational autonomic neuroanatomy — and builds from entirely different epistemic ground. It traces how a long-standing brain-centric bias has fundamentally misconfigured the field’s understanding of human neurology. These are not minor corrections. Removing that bias transforms what the living system is understood to be and how it is understood to function. This critical work explains why prior models are inaccurate. It is the necessary precondition for everything that follows.
Our primary research objectives are aimed further forward, at advancing human flourishing. The program investigates how autonomic state is constructed in vivo; the functional and physiological coordination of the inward senses — interoception, proprioception, and the vestibular sense — and their integration with the autonomic systems; embryonic and perinatal autonomic neurodevelopment and how the human organism establishes functional autonomic baselines; what optimal neurodevelopment looks like and how disruptions to it propagate across a lifespan; the pattern language of salutogenic and pathogenic states and how they undergird both wellbeing and disease etiology; and how to intervene successfully in autonomic and physiological conditions — including those that have been misclassified as psychological in origin.
Peer-reviewed submission is in progress.
