Chiropractic Neurology Research – The Adjustment Causes Changes In The Brain’s SensoriMotor Activation

Recent research in the Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology shows that Chiropractic Adjustments change how the Brain is activated and functions through SensoriMotor Integration.

What Is SensoriMotor Integration?

Sensorimotor integration sounds complicated, but basically means that our brain gets information from our senses (including the sense of knowing where our head and bodies are in space) then our brains use the input from our senses to make some motor output.

Our brain is heavily dependent on the right information from our bodies to make the right motor output.

We tend to think of motor as posture, muscle tone, and muscle strength… but many other motor outputs happen also to our autonomic nervous system (controlling organs).

Even our thoughts can be considered motor output because they occur in the motor region of the brain.

Possible Implications For This Chiropractic Neurology Research

There has been a lot of press and investigation into sensorimotor problems in kids with…

• Learning problems (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, auditory processing disorder, language processing disorder, visual motor deficit, and others)
• Developmental delays
• Autism, Asperger’s, and Autism Spectrum
• ADD and ADHD

Many different health professionals treat these kids with physical treatments.

These professionals include physical therapists (PTs), occupational therapists (OTs), chiropractors, and chiropractic neurologists.

Chiropractic and Sensorimotor Integration

The study by Haavik and Murphy mentioned in the video finds that a chiropractic adjustment can change the integration patterns within the brain.

This has potentially significant implication for treating the kids mentioned above.

But there is more to it…

Pain

It also likely helps explain how chiropractic treatment makes such a huge difference in people by improving function and improving pain.

Pain is a perception in the brain that occurs at least initially from some changes in input to the brain telling you there is a problem and attempting to motivate you to do something about it.

Spinal Motion and Ranges Of Motion Drive Brain Activity

The researchers also found that brain changes occur in both losses of spinal motion (one of the important markers chiropractors use to determine spinal problems) and increases in spinal motion (as seen after chiropractic adjustments).

This is important, losing ranges of motion (bending, turning, etc) in a joint or area (like your neck or back) causes changes in your brain function.

It has to change brain function or you have an even bigger problem.

Have you ever sat to long and your leg went to sleep or laid on your arm and it went to sleep?

The leg or arm that goes to sleep is very hard to control until the limb ‘wakes up.’

This happens because your brain can’t tell exactly where the limb is at that time.

Your brain needs that information to be able to properly control it leaving you helpless until it comes back.

When we lose the range of motion of a joint, even a small joint like in the neck then we lose some degree of ability to control that segment.

We also lose some amount of general activation drive to our brain which can have other important effects.

Improving the motion also changes brain function… as talked about in this research that was seen with the chiropractic adjustment.

What this means is that if your brain loses a little input from your spine because it isn’t moving properly, you lose some degree of brain activation… and the spine is a primary driver of brain function because it is so important for your ability to move.

These Brain Changes Can Happen Without Any Symptoms

The subjects in the study had previously experienced neck pain and/or neck stiffness, but were not experiencing neck pain or stiffness at the time of the study.

The study used chiropractors to evaluate dysfunction in the neck’s movement/joints, something that is often referred to as a subluxation by chiropractors.

This was determined by restricted movement of the small joints in the neck and associated with tenderness in the individuals being checked.

The tenderness in the region of these small neck joints were reported in the subjects when the joint was checked even though the people were not experiencing pain.

The Adjustment And Brain Activation

Following a chiropractic adjustment, subjects showed changes in various parts of the brain associated with sensorimotor integration in the parietal and frontal cortices.

The adjustment also caused changes in the muscle tone of the muscle that supported the area of the spine.

No changes were seen in the control group which had simple head range of motion movement like might be seen in some types of therapy.

Implications For This Chiropractic Neurology Research

This is a great paper that provides support to the idea that many of the benefits chiropractic patients experience occur through neurological changes.

It also might be a good rationale for treating kids that are experiencing sensorimotor integration problems.

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Reference:

Cervical spine manipulation alters sensorimotor integration: a somatosensory evoked potential study.

Clin Neurophysiol. 2007 Feb;118(2):391-402. Epub 2006 Nov 29. Haavik-Taylor H1, Murphy B.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17137836