Chiropractic Improves Activation of the Prefrontal Cortex.

 

Researchers looked at brain waves using an EEG after a chiropractic adjustment compared to a fake, sham adjustment.

They used people that had never seen a chiropractor before, so they didn’t know what to expect for treatment which is important if you need to fool them with a fake treatment.

The chiropractic group demonstrated changes in their EEG of about 20% activity that was not seen in the sham group.

The researchers determined that the brain changes were in the pre-frontal cortex.

The pre-frontal cortex is the area at the front of the brain most associated with the highest levels of brain function and personality.

This area is involved in…

• decision making,
• attention,
• memory,
• intelligence,
• pain,
• emotional responses,
• organ function,
• eye movements,
• coordination, and
• spatial awareness.

Think about this area and what it does for a moment.

This is the area the non-chiropractic researchers found improvement in the study mentioned.

How many people are suffering with problems related to dysfunction here and suffer day after day often taking many medications and still having problems?

Our kids in particular, but so many adults as well.

Could a missing component of their care be simply seeing a chiropractor?

The research mentioned in the video above builds on previous studies demonstrating improvement in brain function with chiropractic treatment.

Once again the research shows us that our bodies and especially our nervous system is exceptionally complex.

Changes in one area… changes in an input like from the spine with a chiropractic adjustment can have significant changes in the brain at the highest levels.

This helps to explain why people that see a chiropractor see improvement in areas beyond pain, muscle spasms, nerve problems, and stiffness that are most typically thought of when people think of chiropractic care.

We’ve talked about many of these other changes and research that demonstrated them throughout our blog…

• Improvement in sensori-motor integration,
• Better awareness of where our bodies are in space,
• Improvement in pelvic floor muscle control,
• Improved ability of spatial awareness,
• Improved muscular strength,
• Reduced risk of falling,
• Lower risk of injury,
• Better balance,
• … and the list goes on.

Our nervous system very strongly relies on input from our body to tell it where we are in space and how we’re moving so that it can plan and coordinate all the various activities going on in our bodies.

It goes even beyond this though.

The brain relies heavily upon stimulation from our bodies to stay alive and properly functioning.

The spine is an especially strong driver of this stimulation because of it’s intimate relationship with the nervous system.

It needs to be this way because it’s necessary to keep us upright and moving through the world.

Reducing this drive from the body to the brain creates losses of activation.

It’s almost like how a light with a dimmer switch gets dimmer as the knob is turned or brighter as it turns the other way.

This is why researchers above found improvement in pre-frontal cortex activation with a spinal adjustment.

This type of treatment can improve spinal function and essentially send a big flow of energy (activation) to the brain.

Research continues to show chiropractic care can improve many things not traditionally associated with chiropractic.

The challenge is that most people including doctors of all types have no idea that chiropractic can improve these things.

Often people with these problems that could be helped with the right chiropractic care are instead treated by other health professionals.

These other health professionals… MDs, specialists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists generally never once even consider referring the person they are treating to a chiropractor.

Unfortunately this is true even if the person doesn’t improve with their care which helps to explain why so many people continue suffering with so many different problems day after day.

Even beyond the areas not traditionally considered chiropractic’s ‘wheelhouse‘ though is the conditions well established to be helped by chiropractors are also not generally referred to chiropractors from other health professionals.

Problems like neck pain, migraines, headaches, back pain, shoulder pain, sciatica, disc injuries, sports injuries, whiplash, fibromyalgia, and more.

Medical treatment of these conditions can help symptoms and in so many cases co-management with a chiropractor often would make a huge difference for the person suffering.

Think about this, how often have you gone to your medical doctor and they recommended you see a chiropractor?

Unfortunately as mentioned above, most MDs are not making the appropriate referrals to a chiropractor.

This is likely because most MDs don’t understand what a chiropractor does or how a chiropractor could help their patient.

They have no education in this area and unfortunately may have some personal bias that is in part driven by their particular education and the constant marketing of pharmaceuticals.

If you think about it, it makes sense… medications seem so technical and complex. They may attempt to make some specific change in a small certain chemical in the body biochemically.

How could physical treatment with chiropractic make a positive change in our bodies?

It’s because of many things in our bodies are very, very complex.

The big picture is that we are more than a biochemical factory of independent parts.

Our bodies work in a coordinated way where one area effects another. Sometimes we need to step out and look at the big picture instead of only the microscopic view.

This idea reminds me of the story of the blind men that felt different parts of the elephant and couldn’t see the whole picture because of their focus on a small part.

It’s extremely important to note that our bodies drive our brain function.

We’ve talked about how chiropractic care changes brain function in different blog articles and videos including this one above.

Physical dysfunction in the body changes brain function… so does restoring that dysfunction as seen with chiropractic care.

We can not only rely upon pain medications (over the counter and prescription) for reducing pain.

The problem is that relying solely upon medication for many of these painful conditions doesn’t work for so many people and results in them having to take ever stronger pain relievers.

This has led to the growing opiod crisis in our country.

There is a much better way and that’s what we do as chiropractors.

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