Layden Chiropractic Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
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. Layden Chiropractic keeps this connection top-of-mind as we treat our Plainville back pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Plainville chiropractic care at Layden Chiropractic respects the brain and spine connection and use gentle, safe chiropractic services including spinal manipulation to reduce pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Plainville BACK PAIN
Pain changes the brain. A person in pain feels 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 parts of the brain. (1) Motor cortex stimulation triggers a spinal anti-inflammatory response to decrease pain. (2) Depression, anxiety, cognitive deficits often accompany chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve because 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 recent study on Euclidean distance between cortical sources and temporal dynamics of plastic changes in the somatosensory cortex of the brain had even your Plainville chiropractor’s head spinning a little! What a topic! Without having to grasp all these terms and measurements discussed in the study, know that the study shared that the brain, even the adult brain, is impressionable. Certainly, the young brain in development is most impressionable, but with the proper 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 their size on MRI. They saw a difference. More research should be done, but they did explain that long term experience establishes cortical organization while occasional, new and different stimulation can trigger 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 Plainville 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 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) Layden Chiropractic takes care of Plainville back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to think that treatment might modify more than just the pain response!
CONTACT Layden 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, illustrates in more depth how the cells of the body are continually remodeling and adjusting to their always-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene positively.
Schedule a non-surgical Plainville chiropractic care appointment with Layden Chiropractic for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Layden Chiropractic can get in the center of those two and help you get some Plainville pain relief.
