Chiropractic Solutions Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They are connected. They’re connected more deeply than any of us appreciate as we go about our daily lives. Chiropractic Solutions keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our San Jose back pain sufferers’ spines and listen to their stories of pain and ways of coping. San Jose chiropractic care at Chiropractic Solutions respects the brain and spine connection and use gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to reduce pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN San Jose 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 due to its effect on the medial prefrontal cortex. (3) Spinal manipulation may be a means 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 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 San Jose chiropractor’s mind spinning a little! What a topic! Without having to grasp all these terms and measurements shared in the study, know that the study presented that the brain, even the adult brain, is impressionable. Certainly, the young brain in development is most impressionable, but with the proper input, the older, adult brain can change. The researchers in this study took measurements 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 induce 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 contributes to the San Jose chiropractic treatment plan!
BRAIN CHANGES WITH CHRONIC PAIN
Just how is the chiropractic treatment plan affected with such knowledge 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 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. After treatment, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thicker. To the researchers, this indicated that treating chronic pain may well reestablish normal brain functions. (6) Chiropractic Solutions takes care of San Jose back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to think that treatment might modify more than just the pain response!
CONTACT Chiropractic Solutions
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 always-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may help.
Schedule a non-surgical San Jose chiropractic care appointment with Chiropractic Solutions for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Chiropractic Solutions can get in the middle of those two and help you find some San Jose pain relief.
