Hollstrom & Associates Inc Presents the Influence of the Brain/Spine Connection in Back Pain
The brain and the spine. They’re connected. They’re connected more deeply than any of us realize as we go about our daily lives. Hollstrom & Associates Inc keeps this connection in mind as we take care of our Largo back pain sufferers’ spines and pay attention to their stories of pain and ways of coping. Largo chiropractic care at Hollstrom & Associates Inc respects the brain and spine connection and implement gentle, safe chiropractic services including spinal manipulation to ease pain concerning both.
BRAIN CHANGES IN Largo 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 examined 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 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 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 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 Largo 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 developing brain is most malleable, but with the appropriate 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 explain 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 discovered in musicians, Braille readers, and persons after spinal manipulation and stroke rehab. (4) This knowledge of the brain contributes to the Largo chiropractic treatment plan!
BRAIN CHANGES WITH CHRONIC PAIN
Just how is the chiropractic treatment plan influenced by 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 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 suggested that treating chronic pain may well restore normal brain functions. (6) Hollstrom & Associates Inc care for Largo back pain patients all day long. It’s amazing to imagine that treatment might affect more than the pain response alone!
CONTACT Hollstrom & Associates Inc
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he defines more clearly the brain and spine and pain connection, describes in more depth how the cells of the body are constantly remodeling and adapting to their ever-changing mechanical environment, and how chiropractic may help.
Schedule a non-surgical Largo chiropractic care appointment with Hollstrom & Associates Inc for your pain, brain, and spine! The connection is there between pain and the brain. Hollstrom & Associates Inc can get in the middle of those two and help you get some Largo pain relief.
