Anatomy at the threshold: Teaching the human body in a hybrid age.

Abstract

As emerging technologies reshape both the body and how we represent it, anatomical education stands at a threshold. Virtual dissection tools, AI-generated images, and immersive platforms are redefining how students learn anatomy, while real-world bodies are becoming hybridized through implants, neural interfaces, and bioengineered components. This Viewpoint explores what it means to teach human anatomy when the body is no longer entirely natural, and the image is no longer entirely real. Based on recent evidence and educational reflections, it suggests that anatomy can serve as a critical human science, one that goes beyond structural knowledge, encouraging students to develop visual literacy, structural reasoning, and ethical awareness. As experiences with donated bodies are replaced with digital models, students risk losing contact with the lived, variable, and vulnerable aspects of the human form. Yet, rather than resisting change, anatomists can respond by integrating new tools within a pedagogical model grounded in presence and meaning. In an age where biology and technology are converging with unexpected speed, anatomy offers a powerful lens to question not only how bodies work, but what bodies mean. The role of the anatomist is therefore both conservative and visionary: to hold the line of deep biological knowledge, while opening the door to critical engagement with the hybrid human condition.