Medicina biosemiótica: de una medicina de efectos a una medicina de procesos / Biosemiotic medicine: From an effect-based medicine to a process-based medicine

La medicina contemporánea se caracteriza por una creciente subespecialización, así como por la adquisición de un mayor conocimiento respecto de la interacción entre las distintas estructuras del organismo (biosemiótica) tanto en estado de salud como de enfermedad. Se propone, en este artículo, una nueva conceptualización del organismo basada en la perspectiva de considerarlo conformado por un espacio biológico (células, tejidos y órganos) y un espacio biosemiótico (intercambio de señales entre ellos). Su desarrollo daría lugar a una nueva subespecialidad dedicada al estudio e interferencia de la biosemiótica de la enfermedad (medicina biosemiótica), lo que propiciaría el desarrollo de una medicina de procesos, tendiente al diagnóstico y tratamiento temprano de las enfermedades

Contemporary medicine is characterized by an increasing subspecialization and the acquisition of a greater knowledge about the interaction among the different body structures (biosemiotics), both in health and disease. This article proposes a new conceptualization of the body based on considering it as a biological space (cells, tissues, and organs) and a biosemiotic space (exchange of signs among them). Its development would lead to a new subspecialty focused on the study and interference of disease biosemiotics (biosemiotic medicine), which would trigger a process-based medicine centered on early diagnosis and management of disease.

Biosemiotics and Body Signifier Theory: a way to understand High Dilutions / Biosemiotics and Body Signifier Theory: a way to understand High Dilutions

Since the 80´s Madeleine Bastide and Agnès Lagache have worked on the idea of the Body Signifier Theory, in which the living systems could be defined as ?sensible? systems not only able to self-organize, but also to receive and process non-molecular information according to the Pierce semiotic triad: matrix, receiver and carrier. These ideas were built along 20 years of experimental observations, whose results presented some kind of stereotyped pattern that emerged from cells or animals exposed to high dilutions, according to the similia principle. Curiously, at the same time, classical scientific communities have developed the concept of biosemiotics after the observation that living systems are semiotics entities able to deal with codes and meanings, even in molecule-driven processes. Not only the genetic code, but all regulatory functions in living systems represent coding processes. The development of methodologies to identify and understand these codes and its outputs is the aim of biosemiotic science. Putting both concepts together (body signifiers and biosemiotics), it is possible to recognize strong similarities between their approaches and methodology, allowing logical connections between non-molecular signals and changes in cell interactions patterns. Thus, the general concept of biosemiotic could be a theoretical platform on which the construction of a solid phenomenological description of high dilutions effects could be done.