The Physics of the Brain- Part 2

"Gimme a beat."


In 1986, Janet Jackson released a song called "Nasty" and the above quote was how she started the song.  For all my musician wanna-be readers out there, "getting a beat" is the quintessential rallying cry for rock groups, orchestras and high school bands alike to begin their path to harmonic and melodic glory.  For those card carrying members of the "rhythmically-challenged" club, think "Ready, Set, Go!" or just your basic "on the count of 3" command.

Now imagine attending a symphony, say the famous Boston Symphony Orchestra, except you notice there is no conductor with his little stick......and all the musicians are blindfolded......and have ear plugs in their ears.  Oh, and one more thing- before they were led to the stage they were told to play whatever chords they wanted at whatever time they wanted.  Now sit back, close your eyes and pretend you're in the front row of that symphony.  How would that experience be?

I just described the brain of a child with autism.  And to a much lesser degree, your brain when it just can't recall the name of a patient you just saw earlier that day, or the last item your wife ask you to pick up at the grocery store. Or, better yet, you can't seem to link or connect the relationship between a dysfunctional spinal segment, its inability to depolarize a population of receptors and the deafferentation effects to the central integrative pathways just two or three synapses away.  Phew!  That was a mouthful.

"Binding" is the term used to describe the above situations.  On our journey to understanding the space-time continuum of the brain, we focus, in this post, on the concept of time as it relates to brain function and how we humans became more dependent on timing connections than physical connections as we evolved from our bipedalling, knuckle dragging days.

Quite simply, as we humans got the rhythmic, synchronous and motor "binding" act of walking down pat, it opened the door to the ability for the brain and nervous system to differentiate and specialize, and with it, this idea of coherence (both spatial and temporal).  The idea that the brain is asymmetrical in its functions (known as lateralization) as an evolutionary exaptation to perfecting upright walking is not new.  All that split brain research done in the 70's proved it so.  However, as a historical side note, this research led to an over-simplification and to the pop psychology phase of "left brain vs right brain" crap.  Brain asymmetry fell out of favour for awhile.  As in any reaction to pop psychology phases, pseudo-intellectual "contrarians" (who exclusively never follow whats "popular") hammered on it incessantly with equally over simplified opposing arguments and unfortunately threw the bath water out with the baby.  Needless to say, functional brain asymmetry, aka lateralization, is an evolutionary and neuroscientific fact.....its just not as simple as you think.

Integration can only come as a result of having differentiation.  Think about it, if you don't have different things than what are you integrating?  An orchestra playing beautiful and harmonious works of art is an integration of "different"talent and  "different" instruments coming together with the lead of a conductor and his "beat".   The musicians are arranged "physically" on the stage in a certain way for a reason but it is their timing that produces such exquisite sound.

Now think about a concept many of you are familiar with, from Dr. Donald Hebb (a Canadian neuropsychologist),

"Nerves cells that fire together, wire together."


Have you ever thought about why it wasn't phrased as, "Nerve cells that wire together, fire together."?  Ahh, did you just have an a-ha moment?  I did.

Now, Chiropractors, imagine those populations of receptors not firing its EPSPs (excitatory post-synaptic potentials) into the cord and up to the brain, especially from one side (which is usually the case).  What will that do to the all critical bottom up development of a still specializing and maturing young brain?  The genes that develop the neurons in the brain are experience dependent, not chemical dependent.  For neurons to work as a team, it helps to have a beat.  The greatest source of coordinated neuronal activity comes from the gravity induced slow adapting muscle spindles and mechanoreceptors of the SPINE.  This oscillatory activity into thalamus (with other sensory input) is the contextual "beat" which binds the information from our senses together and serves as the platform for your ability to sort the signal from the noise.  To finally remember the patients name, the fact that it was bananas your wife wanted from the store and to own and grasp this idea of healthy spinal function equals healthy brain function.......or how bout that autistic child's first words to his mother being "I love you" (true story).

We promote integration (and coherence) with our adjustments.

In the next post, we will continue with our journey of the Physics of the Brain and you'll want to tune in cause I will be putting forth the most plausible explanation of Harvey Lillard's hearing miracle to date (one that I am sure most of you have not yet heard) and telling you about the "greatest chiropractic study never known".

Now gimme a beat, Janet.