Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They’re connected. They’re connected more intimately than any of us appreciate as we go about our daily lives. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our Baton Rouge back pain sufferers’ spines and pay attention to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Baton Rouge chiropractic care at Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services including spinal manipulation to reduce pain concerning both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Baton Rouge 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 brain areas. (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 deal with 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 Baton Rouge chiropractor’s mind spinning a bit! What a topic! Without having to understand all these terms and measurements shared in the study, know that the study shared that the brain, even the adult brain, is impressionable. Certainly, the young developing brain is most impressionable, but with the proper input, the older, adult brain can transform. The researchers in this study took measurements before and after stimulation and compared their size on MRI. They saw 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 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 knowledge of the brain contributes to the Baton Rouge 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 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 suggested that treating chronic pain may well reestablish normal brain functions. (6) Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers care for Baton Rouge back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to think that treatment might modify more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers
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 adjusting to their ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may intervene positively.
Schedule a non-surgical Baton Rouge chiropractic care appointment with Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers can get in the center of those two and help you find some Baton Rouge pain relief.
