Amelia Chiropractic Clinic 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. Amelia Chiropractic Clinic keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our Fernandina Beach back pain sufferers’ spines and pay attention to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Fernandina Beach chiropractic care at Amelia Chiropractic Clinic respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services including spinal manipulation to reduce pain concerning both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Fernandina Beach 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 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 reduce 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 associated issues.
SHORT TERM STIMULATION’S EFFECT ON BRAIN
Stimulating the brain even for a short time may impact 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 Fernandina Beach chiropractor’s head spinning a bit! What a subject! Without having to understand all these terms and measurements shared in the study, know that the study presented that the brain, even the adult brain, is impressionable. Sure, 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 them on MRI. They noticed 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 discovered in musicians, Braille readers, and persons after spinal manipulation and stroke rehab. (4) This understanding of the brain informs the Fernandina Beach 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 looking at the brain with chronic pain. The two brain regions that encode the intensity of pain 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 discovered 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 can restore normal brain functions. (6) Amelia Chiropractic Clinic treats Fernandina Beach back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to think that treatment might affect more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Amelia Chiropractic Clinic
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he explains more clearly the brain and spine and pain connection, illustrates in more depth how the cells of the body are constantly remodeling and adjusting to their always-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene positively.
Schedule a non-surgical Fernandina Beach chiropractic care appointment with Amelia Chiropractic Clinic for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Amelia Chiropractic Clinic can get in the center of those two and help you find some Fernandina Beach pain relief.
