Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc 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 appreciate as we go about our daily lives. Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc keeps this connection top-of-mind as we take care of our Fort Wayne back pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Fort Wayne chiropractic care at Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc respects the brain and spine connection and use gentle, safe chiropractic services including spinal manipulation to ease pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Fort Wayne 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 examined after stimulating lumbar spinous processes with manipulation and demonstrated 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 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 related 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 Fort Wayne chiropractor’s head spinning a little! What a topic! Without having to understand all these terms and measurements shared in the study, know that the study shared that the brain, even the adult brain, is malleable. Of course, the young developing brain 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 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 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 knowledge of the brain informs the Fort Wayne 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 painful stimuli and contribute 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 indicated that treating chronic pain may well restore normal brain functions. (6) Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc treats Fort Wayne back pain patients all day long. It is amazing to think that treatment might affect more than just the pain response!
CONTACT Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc
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, illustrates in more depth how the cells of the body are continually remodeling and adapting to their always-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may help.
Schedule a non-surgical Fort Wayne chiropractic care appointment with Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc can get in the middle of those two and help you get some Fort Wayne pain relief.
