Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre 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. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre keeps this connection top-of-mind as we take care of our Toronto back pain sufferers’ spines and pay attention to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Toronto chiropractic care at Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre respects the brain and spine connection and use gentle, safe chiropractic services incorporating spinal manipulation to ease pain affecting both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Toronto 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 triggers a spinal anti-inflammatory response to decrease pain. (2) Depression, anxiety, cognitive deficits often come with chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve because 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 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 Toronto chiropractor’s mind spinning a bit! What a subject! 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 malleable. Sure, the young developing brain 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 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 contributes to the Toronto 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 painful stimuli 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 can restore normal brain functions. (6) Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre care for Toronto back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to think that treatment might alter more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre
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 continually remodeling and adjusting to their always-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene positively.
Schedule a non-surgical Toronto chiropractic care appointment with Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre can get in the middle of those two and help you find some Toronto pain relief.
