Apple Country Chiropractic Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They’re connected. They are connected more intimately than any of us realize as we go about our daily lives. Apple Country Chiropractic keeps this connection top-of-mind as we treat our Williamson back pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Williamson chiropractic care at Apple Country Chiropractic respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to reduce pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Williamson BACK PAIN
Pain changes the brain. A person in pain knows it. Special tests today can reveal it. BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) responses were analyzed after stimulating lumbar spinous processes with manipulation and exhibited activity in the secondary somatosensory cortex, cerebellum and other brain areas. (1) Motor cortex stimulation triggers a spinal anti-inflammatory response to reduce pain. (2) Depression, anxiety, cognitive deficits often accompany chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve as a result of its effect on the medial prefrontal cortex. (3) Spinal manipulation may be a means to address the brain changes in chronic pain and its associated issues.
SHORT TERM STIMULATION’S EFFECT ON BRAIN
Stimulating the brain even for a short time may influence the pain experience. A new study on Euclidean distance between cortical sources and temporal dynamics of plastic changes in the somatosensory cortex of the brain had even your Williamson chiropractor’s mind spinning a little! What a subject! Without having to grasp all these terms and measurements shared in the study, know that the study shared that the brain, even the adult brain, is impressionable. Of course, the young brain in development is most impressionable, but with the proper input, the older, adult brain can change. The researchers in this study took measurements before and after stimulation and compared their size on MRI. They saw a difference. More research should be done, but they did describe that long term experience establishes cortical organization while transient, new and different stimulation can induce cortical reorganization of the adult brain. Such changes have been noted in musicians, Braille readers, and persons after spinal manipulation and stroke rehab. (4) This understanding of the brain contributes to the Williamson chiropractic treatment plan!
BRAIN CHANGES WITH CHRONIC PAIN
Just how is the chiropractic treatment plan affected with such knowledge of the brain? Let us start by looking at the brain with chronic pain. The two brain regions that encode the intensity of pain and add to the whole experience of chronic pain are the primary somatosensory cortex and posterior insular cortex. (5) The cortex of the brain was shown to be thinner in chronic low back pain patients. Post-treatment, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thicker. To the researchers, this suggested that treating chronic pain may well restore normal brain functions. (6) Apple Country Chiropractic treats Williamson back pain patients all day long. It is amazing to imagine that treatment might modify more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Apple Country Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he defines more clearly the brain and spine and pain connection, describes in more depth how the cells of the body are constantly remodeling and adapting to their ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may help.
Schedule a non-surgical Williamson chiropractic care appointment with Apple Country Chiropractic for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Apple Country Chiropractic can get in the middle of those two and help you get some Williamson pain relief.
