Satterwhite Chiropractic Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They’re connected. They are connected more intimately than any of us appreciate as we go about our daily lives. Satterwhite Chiropractic keeps this connection in mind as we treat our Oxford back pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Oxford chiropractic care at Satterwhite Chiropractic respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to ease pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Oxford 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 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 provokes 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 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 new study on Euclidean distance between cortical sources and temporal dynamics of plastic changes in the somatosensory cortex of the brain had even your Oxford chiropractor’s head spinning a bit! What a topic! Without having to grasp 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 malleable, but with the appropriate input, the older, adult brain can change. The researchers in this study took measurements before and after stimulation and compared their size on MRI. They noticed a difference. More research needs to 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 discovered in musicians, Braille readers, and persons after spinal manipulation and stroke rehab. (4) This understanding of the brain informs the Oxford chiropractic treatment plan!
BRAIN CHANGES WITH CHRONIC PAIN
Just how is the chiropractic treatment plan affected with such information of the brain? Let’s start by examining the brain with chronic pain. The two brain regions that encode the intensity of painful stimuli 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 shown to be thinner in chronic low back pain patients. After treatment, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thicker. To the researchers, this indicated that treating chronic pain may well restore normal brain functions. (6) Satterwhite Chiropractic treats Oxford back pain patients all day long. It is amazing to imagine that treatment might affect more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Satterwhite 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 continually remodeling and adjusting to their always-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may help.
Schedule a non-surgical Oxford chiropractic care appointment with Satterwhite Chiropractic for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Satterwhite Chiropractic can get in the middle of those two and help you find some Oxford pain relief.
