The brain and the spine. They’re connected. They’re connected more closely than any of us realize
as we go about our daily lives. Soft Health and Healing Clinic keeps this connection in
mind as we treat our Brooks back
pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of
pain and ways of coping. Brooks chiropractic care at Soft Health and Healing Clinic
respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe
chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to reduce
pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Brooks BACK PAIN
Pain changes the brain. A person in pain feels
it. Special tests today can show it. BOLD (blood oxygen level
dependent) responses were examined after stimulating lumbar spinous
processes with manipulation and demonstrated activity in the
secondary somatosensory cortex, cerebellum and other brain areas. (1) Motor cortex stimulation provokes a spinal
anti-inflammatory response to reduce pain. (2) Depression,
anxiety, cognitive deficits often come with chronic
constriction of the sciatic nerve because of its effect
on the medial prefrontal cortex. (3)
Spinal manipulation may be a way to deal with the
brain changes in chronic pain and its related issues.
SHORT TERM STIMULATION’S EFFECT ON BRAIN
Stimulating the brain even for a short time may influence
the pain experience. A recent study on Euclidean distance between
cortical sources and temporal dynamics of plastic changes in the somatosensory
cortex of the brain had even your Brooks chiropractor’s mind
spinning a bit! What a subject! Without having to understand
all these terms and measurements discussed 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 appropriate
input, the older, adult brain can transform. The researchers in
this study measured and compared the brain’s cortical size
before and after stimulation and compared them on MRI. They noticed
a difference. More research should be done, but they did describe
that long term experience establishes cortical organization while
occasional, new and different stimulation can spark
cortical reorganization of the adult brain. Such changes have been seen
in musicians, Braille readers, and persons after spinal manipulation and stroke
rehab. (4) This understanding of the brain
contributes to the Brooks chiropractic treatment
plan!
BRAIN CHANGES WITH CHRONIC PAIN
Just how is the chiropractic treatment plan influenced by such information of the brain? Let us start
by examining the brain with chronic pain. The two brain regions that encode the
intensity of painful stimuli and add to the overall
experience of chronic pain are the primary somatosensory cortex and posterior
insular cortex. (5) The cortex of the brain was discovered to be
thinner in chronic low back pain patients. Post-treatment, the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thicker. To the researchers, this implied
that treating chronic pain may well restore normal
brain functions. (6) Soft Health and Healing Clinic care for Brooks back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to think
that treatment might alter more than the pain response
alone!
CONTACT Soft Health and Healing Clinic
Listen to this PODCAST
by Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he
explains more plainly the brain and spine and pain
connection, illustrates in more depth how the cells of the body
are continually remodeling and adapting to
their ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene
positively.
Schedule a non-surgical Brooks chiropractic care
appointment with Soft Health and Healing Clinic for your pain, brain, and spine! The
connection is there between pain and the brain. Soft Health and Healing Clinic can get in the middle
of those two and help you find some Brooks pain relief.