OrthoIllinois Chiropractic Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They’re connected. They’re connected more intimately than any of us realize as we go about our daily lives. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our McHenry back pain sufferers’ spines and pay attention to their stories of pain and ways of coping. McHenry chiropractic care at OrthoIllinois Chiropractic respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to ease pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN McHenry 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 examined after stimulating lumbar spinous processes with manipulation and exhibited 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 as a result 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 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 McHenry chiropractor’s head spinning a little! What a topic! 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 pliable. Sure, the young brain in development is most impressionable, but with the appropriate input, the older, adult brain can transform. The researchers in this study took measurements before and after stimulation and compared them on MRI. They saw 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 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 contributes to the McHenry chiropractic treatment plan!
BRAIN CHANGES WITH CHRONIC PAIN
Just how is the chiropractic treatment plan influenced by such knowledge of the brain? Let’s start by looking at the brain with chronic pain. The two brain regions that encode the intensity of painful stimuli and contribute 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 suggested that treating chronic pain can reestablish normal brain functions. (6) OrthoIllinois Chiropractic care for McHenry back pain patients all day long. It is amazing to think that treatment might modify more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT OrthoIllinois Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he defines more plainly the brain and spine and pain connection, describes in more depth how the cells of the body are constantly remodeling and adjusting to their ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene positively.
Schedule a non-surgical McHenry chiropractic care appointment with OrthoIllinois Chiropractic for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic can get in the center of those two and help you get some McHenry pain relief.
