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Is a Stiff Spine really Stiff?

A recent Scientific Report published by Nature looked into perceived stiffness of the spine and actual stiffness of the spine and found that when people feel as though their back is stiff it is a lack of sensory motor integration and not directly due to stiffness in the back. The prediction system of the brain uses multi sensory information to predict the movement parameters of our body. When multiple sensory inputs are not integrating then the parameters can be confining felt as a stiffness in the back. The ability to co-ordinate the sensory information of the body in the brain can result in a stiffness perception that is independent of actual stiffness.

The integration of multiple sensory signals, is what can be confused or muddled that result in back stiffness problems. When integration occurs it means that Sensation A and Sensation B are needed simultaneously to understand the body in the brain map of the body. When Sensation A occurs out of sync with Sensation B then the back can feel stiff but not actually be stiffer.

I like this paper because it may help people to step out beyond the ageing model of back problems, the lingering injury / degeneration models and the useless ‘out of place’ and ‘symmetrical’ models.

When the sensory motor experience of our body goes out of kilter we can become better at feeling changes in force generated by muscles having the knock on effect of heightening protection mechanisms because we are not expecting that much effort to move in a comparatively small way.

Regular (Annual or biannual) checks of your back by a Chiropractor is important whether you are in a sense of stiffness, or not. A Chiropractor can help to re-integrate the sensory motor experience of your body.

Nature Scientific Report 7: 9681 (August 2017)

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How might Back Pain run in families..?

Two recent studies seem to have conjoined in my mind; one is from Zurich University Chiropractic department showing brain activity relative to lumbar spine pressure such as might happen in low back pain syndromes. The other is about training mice to ‘fear’ a smell across their generations controlling for nurture. Answering the long debate of nature versus nurture. Researchers showed that without nurture the cue for a fear response can still be passed on.

The first study carried out in Zurich; showed that back pain is linked to a part (nucleus) of the brain involved in social pain. What if we as humans could pass on in our genes information that affects the life experience of the next generation? You may find yourself as an individual with a back symptom from ‘nowhere’ due to an ancestral social cue. In generations passed going out of favour with the group could have had deadly consequences.

The second study was published in Nature Neuroscience (2014; 17, 89-96) demonstrating a transference of a fear response genetically; without nurture. The mice were shown to pass on a (protective) smell memory to their children and their grandchildren (F2).

If we as a species can have an ancestral cue for a social stress causing back pain passed on from family member to family member and social stress is not considered in your care plan. You could be forgiven for thinking that you have to ‘live’ with pain. Identifying potential cues from your environment ‘stressors’ to your behaviours, thoughts and/or feelings can be methodologically worked through. Whilst you figure out the cues to your stresses consider having body work to help you with accumulation. Accumulation in my opinion can make your condition worse.

I think when human body tissues are abnormally loaded the tissues do not undergo a training effect and instead are strained. Having a genetic fear response in social conditions where I reflexively squeeze my back muscles from an unidentified cue, providing pressure on my vertebrae, would be an abnormal load; like a repetitive strain scenario on the low back tissues of the body. Choose fascia first chiropractic it is more than a ‘quick click’.