Aurora Chiropractic Center 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 realize as we go about our daily lives. Aurora Chiropractic Center keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our Juneau back pain sufferers’ spines and pay attention to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Juneau chiropractic care at Aurora Chiropractic Center respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to ease pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Juneau 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 demonstrated 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 address 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 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 Juneau chiropractor’s head spinning a bit! What a subject! 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 impressionable. Sure, the young brain in development is most impressionable, but with the appropriate input, the older, adult brain can change. 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 spark cortical reorganization of the adult brain. Such changes have been seen in musicians, Braille readers, and persons after spinal manipulation and stroke rehab. (4) This understanding of the brain contributes to the Juneau 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 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. Post-treatment, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thicker. To the researchers, this indicated that treating chronic pain can restore normal brain functions. (6) Aurora Chiropractic Center takes care of Juneau back pain patients all day long. It is amazing to think that treatment might affect more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Aurora Chiropractic Center
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, describes in more depth how the cells of the body are continually remodeling and adapting to their ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene positively.
Schedule a non-surgical Juneau chiropractic care appointment with Aurora Chiropractic Center for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Aurora Chiropractic Center can get in the middle of those two and help you get some Juneau pain relief.
