Johnson Chiropractic Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They are connected. They’re connected more intimately than any of us appreciate as we go about our daily lives. Johnson Chiropractic keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our Richmond back pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Richmond chiropractic care at Johnson Chiropractic respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to ease pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Richmond 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 brain areas. (1) Motor cortex stimulation triggers a spinal anti-inflammatory response to decrease pain. (2) Depression, anxiety, cognitive deficits often come with chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve due to its effect on the medial prefrontal cortex. (3) Spinal manipulation may be a means 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 Richmond chiropractor’s head spinning a little! What a subject! Without having to understand all these terms and measurements discussed in the study, know that the study presented that the brain, even the adult brain, is pliable. Sure, the young developing brain 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 them 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 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 knowledge of the brain informs the Richmond 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 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. After treatment, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thicker. To the researchers, this implied that treating chronic pain can reestablish normal brain functions. (6) Johnson Chiropractic takes care of Richmond back pain patients all day long. It is amazing to imagine that treatment might alter more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Johnson 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 ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may help.
Schedule a non-surgical Richmond chiropractic care appointment with Johnson Chiropractic for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Johnson Chiropractic can get in the middle of those two and help you find some Richmond pain relief.
