THE BRAIN CONNECTION:
Research Proves Chiropractic Adjustments Affect Emotions, Learning, Memory, Consciousness, Motivation, Homeostasis, Perception, Motor Control, Self-Awareness, Cognitive Function, Voluntary Movement, Decision Making, Touch and Pain
A report on the scientific literature
By: Mark Studin DC, FASBE(C), DAAPM, DAAMLP
William J. Owens DC, DAAMLP
For decades chiropractors and their patients have been experiencing many positive outcomes that have gone well beyond the pain treatment they originally sought. This author has been practicing for 34 years and has witnessed what many thought were miracles, but the seasoned chiropractor simply called it an everyday occurrence, albeit lacking in an explanation that was verified through research and published in a universally accepted forum, the scientific literature. Notwithstanding, we practitioners and our patients have persevered for over 115 years having to rely simply in results.
In 2014, Gay and fellow researchers concluded “…pain-free volunteers processed thermal stimuli applied to the hand before and after thoracic (mid-back) spinal manipulation (chiropractic spinal adjustment)). What they found was that after thoracic manipulation, several brain regions demonstrated a reduction in peak BOLD [blood-oxygen-level–dependent] activity. Those regions included the cingulate, insular, motor, amygdala and somatosensory cortices, and the PAG [periaqueductal gray regions]” (p. 615). In other words, thoracic chiropractic adjustments produced direct and measureable effects on the central nervous system across multiple regions, which is responsible for the processing of emotion (cingulate cortex, aka limbic cortex) and the insular cortex, which also responsible for regulating emotion as well has homeostasis. The motor cortex is involved in the planning and execution of voluntary movements, the amygdala’s primary function is memory and decision making (also part of the limbic system), the somatosensory cortex is involved in processing the sense of touch (remember the homunculus) and, finally, the periaqueductal gray is responsible for descending pain modulation (the brain regulating the processing of painful stimuli).
The following regions of the brain are affected and the following functions are affected:
Brain Region |
Function |
Cingulate Cortex |
Emotions, learning, motivation, memory |
Insular Cortex |
Consciousness, homeostasis, perception, motor control, self-awareness, cognitive function |
Motor Cortex |
Voluntary movements |
Amygdala Cortex |
Memory, decision making, emotional reactions |
Somatosensory Cortex |
Proprio and mechano-reception, touch, temperature, pain of the skin, epithelial, skeletal muscle, bones, joints, internal organs and cardiovascular systems |
Periaqueductal Gray |
Ascending and descending spinothalamtic tracts carrying pain and temperature fibers |
We are now starting to get answers and reasons for the results that was once considered “miracles.” The research has verified that the chiropractic adjustment does not deliver miracles, it only helps the body work better and we now know why.
We also know that chiropractic is one of the safest treatments currently available in healthcare and when there is a treatment where the potential for benefits far outweighs any risk, it deserves serious consideration. Whedon, Mackenzie, Phillips, and Lurie (2015) based their study on 6,669,603 subjects after the unqualified subjects had been removed from the study and accounted for 24,068,808 office visits. They concluded, “No mechanism by which SM [spinal manipulation] induces injury into normal healthy tissues has been identified (Whedon et al., 2015, p. 5)
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