Stimulus-Bound vs Goal-Directed Behaviour Part 2

In our last post we alluded to, among many things, the importance of INHIBITION- the ability of the higher centres in our brain to wrestle control away from our lower (and more demanding) centres of our brain.  A brain which is under more subcortical control is one that is held hostage by more primitive drives such as sex, food, threat and instant rewards.  In this state, it is very difficult to develop the AWA skills of change management, particularly when well ingrained negative plasticity has developed in the CNS.

As a review, neuroplasticity is the ability to build (and maintain) a pathway in the CNS.  We can have;

Negative plasticity- which will produce negative outcomes such as PTSD or chronic pain.
or
Positive plasticity- which will produce positive outcomes such as mastering the guitar or healthy cortical modulation of sympathetic activity (via PMRF activation).

As doctors, we are exposed to the negative, and sometimes positive, aspects of neuroplasticity in our patients every single day.  They are reflected in our patients' pain syndromes, muscle imbalances, altered gait mechanics, postural distortions, autonomic imbalances and so on.  They are also reflected in our patients' return to normal function and resultant maintenance of that function via our interventions and recommended self-care protocols.  So does the same principle apply to our topic of Stimulus-Bound vs Goal-Directed behaviour and change management?  Is spending your money impulsively (and not paying down debt) to "keep up with the Jones'" a form of negative plasticity and therefore a reflection of the maturation of your CNS?  Well the short answer is yes.  For some reading this, you may have felt a little twinge in the gut just now.  But thats the first step to change.  The truth, however, is that we have examples of both negative and positive plasticity in our lives.  My advice.....don't change a thing with the positive plasticity thats working for you and change the negative plasticity that's not working for you.  Sounds simple but most people suffer from some form of  anosognosia, which is just a fancy way of saying that sometimes you don't know what you don't know.  And in the arena of negative plasticity, ignorance is NOT bliss!

Consider the physiological blind spot that we all have.  That small area on the optic disc of the retina that contains no photoreceptor cells.  Well guess what?  You don't know its there because your brain fills in the gap and literally makes things up to fill in the visual representation of that spot.   This can be measured and, to go a step further, used as an objective measure of brain function.  Our brains are incredibly adept predicting machines.  Starved of the necessary information that it needs (as in the case of a subluxation), it will make things up to account for the void.  Perception may not reflect reality as a result.

So now the question is, do we have cognitive or emotional blind spots with regards to our behaviour?  What things do we "make up" in an effort to provide a rationalization for our own "blind spots"?  Better yet, can we measure it, change it and then measure it again?  Yes and yes.  Neuroscience suggests that psychology is a reflection of physiology, specifically neurophysiology.  This may come across as a deterministic (which is distinctly different from mechanistic) concept but it is not, because there is no room for change in determinism.  On the flip side, emergent vitalism (or neo-vitalism) allows for the limitless confounding variables that shape and mould who we are now AND who we can become.  We truly are greater than the sum of our parts since, as epigenetics has proven, our environment plays a role in that evolution as well....but I philosophically digress.

I promised in the last post to address this idea of assessing and changing our own inhibitory skills so that we can shift our behaviours from more stimulus-bound to the goal-directed kind.  Let's use the backdrop of a nice little scientific review written by Douglas Munoz and Stefan Everling in Nature (2004)entitled "Look away: The anti-saccade task and the voluntary control of eye movement".

As an aside, I think many chiropractors are missing an opportunity to improve their assessment of the nervous system by not becoming trained in the examination of the eyes.  The eyes and the spine are embryological homologues and therefore stayed wired together for life.  Therefore, from a neurological perspective, what happens in the eyes....happens in the spine.  And the eyes are not buried underneath 5 layers of muscle, adipose tissue and skin so it makes for an easy qualitative, and with the right technology, quantitative evaluation.  So for me, those two little globes are like vertebrae to assess.

First line of the article.  "The anti-saccade task has emerged as an important task for investigating the flexible control we have over behaviour".  In this task, participants must suppress the reflexive urge to look at a visual target that appears suddenly in the peripheral visual field and must instead look away from the target in the opposite direction.  Ladies, think of this test as a measurement of your husband's ability to not gawk at a well-endowed woman walking towards you as the two of you stroll past holding hands.  Get the picture.  A simple way to perform it is to hold out both your thumbs approx 40-50 cm apart and randomly wiggle one thumb and then instruct the person you are testing to dart their eyes in the opposite direction of the wiggling thumb.  Can they inhibit the reflexive urge to look towards the target stimuli (wiggling thumb) known as an automatic saccade?  Disorders or dysfunction in the executive centres of the brain (namely the frontal lobe) find it difficult to suppress this urge revealing a deficit in top-down inhibition.  There are several other tests you could do to test frontal lobe maturation but beyond the scope of this blog.

Frontal lobe and eye exercises such as pursuits, saccades and various other brain "gym" activities therefore become great ways at building plasticity for the inhibitory skills necessary to develop goal directed behaviours.  There is a caveat, however.  You must be specific to the hemisphericity, or under-connected side of the brain otherwise exercises or activities that target the wrong hemisphere or are too bilaterally general will not create that positive plasticity in flexible behaviour control and can in fact, worsen an already existing negative plastic state.  This, of course, must be skillfully assessed.  Targeted plasticity after a skilled assessment is the key to rubbing the neuroplastic genie.  Be open to being checked by someone trained in a comprehensive functional neurological assessment.

You never know, you might just be cured of your anosognosia.

Stimulus-Bound vs Goal-Directed Behaviour

A good friend and mentor of mine wrote a book about achieving Chiropractic Affluence (book is called DC Money and I highly recommend it).  This simply and brilliantly written book lays out an effective and proven system (proven by myself personally) for managing finances and achieving debt-free wealth.  In it, he writes about AWA- Awareness, Willingness and Ability- and the need for people to adopt this acronym.  Change Management, he writes, is the key to achieving your financial dreams and he's right.  For this blog entry (and maybe more) I'd like to delve deeper into the neuroscience of AWA and Change Management and perhaps suggest some ways we could help ourselves adopt a system (or any other financial system) such as his and be more able to actually implement it and not just read the words.  It starts with knowing ourselves- our behaviours, how our brain works, the things we say to ourselves, why we sabotage our "spoken" goals.....you know, the goals we declare with our voice but don't commit with our hearts.  As sophisticated and complicated (or are we?) creatures of movement, we have no choice about the fact that we have a brain that allows us to either move toward a goal or away from it.  So everything we do is either about Approach or Avoid.  It only gets "complicated" when we confuse the behaviours with the goals or the desires or the wants we declare.  You know.....when we say we want one thing but our actions say we want something else.
The obvious shining examples,
Goal- "I want to lose weight."
Behaviour- Then why are you eating a Whopper?

Goal-"I want to be debt-free."
Behaviour- Then why are you leasing a Mercedes when you still have a $250,000 student loan?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that in the first example the person's behaviour is bound by the  stimulus of a juicy, tasty Whopper. Not by the "future" svelte, thinner, healthier version of themselves which doesn't derive any immediate satisfaction of such a sinful delight.  Are there a whole lot of "complicating" emotional "baggage" such as addiction, self worth issues, body image problems....blah, blah, blah.  Maybe.  Not really.  I'll explain in a moment.

The same understanding is clear for the second example.  This person's behaviour is bound by the  stimulus of driving a "status" symbol that says "they have arrived".  Not by the "future" debt-free, worry-free, option-plenty version of their financial selves which doesn't give a rat's ass about what their friends think because they are driving a Civic and paying off their student loan.

Now, think about the timeline of the rush you get from a Whopper....5 minutes......maybe.  What about the rush of driving a brand new Mercedes......1 month....maybe.   How long do the benefits from being thinner and healthier last?  How many options, benefits and opportunities do you get from being debt-free?  What potential doors and accomplishments lie ahead when you're both healthy and wealthy?  And how long does that last?  Well, if you're really forward thinking........generations, if you are into leaving legacies.

So, in summary,
Stimulus bound behaviour= Temporarily gratifying, driven typically by non-conscious, limbic, automated actions.
Goal directed behaviour= Longer lasting fulfillment, driven typically by conscious, prefrontal, planned and intentional actions.

Is it realistic to always be goal-directed and have no "fun"?  No, and nor am I implying you have to.....but more on that later (Part II).

Awareness, Willingness and Ability (AWA), from a neuroscientific point of view, comes down to one simple concept- INHIBITION.  Ever heard of the saying, "Growth lies in the ability to shed the things that prevent us from Growing".  That is about INHIBITION.  Are we able to inhibit the fixed action patterns and motor programs that we have moulded, shaped and neurologically ingrained all our lives but no longer serve us?  Are we even AWARE of these habits, or WILLING to change them, or even developed the ABILITY to inhibit them.  Some of us, as we say about "old farts", are really "set" in our ways.  So, as you can see, the concept is simple, as I promised it was......but, in practice?......well, that depends on how you've developed and continue to use this thing you have, called a brain.  Because from a brain's point of view, inhibition is a "top down" phenomenon....but you don't develop strong top down inhibition until you generate robust "bottom up" growth.  When you learn to vertically integrate and then horizontally integrate your own brain....inhibition becomes much easier and what follows is a life more dominated by goal-directed behaviours, more success and more fulfillment.  Most successful people do not realize this neuroscientific phenomenon.  While they preach "hard work" and "belief in oneself" as the cause of their success, they are unaware that "hard work" and "belief in oneself" is a product (or effect) of their brain's ability to exert top down inhibition and shed the things that get in the way of achieving their goals.  Especially when they're surrounded by the lure of the stimuli around them....think, former gambling addict walking through a casino and not compelled to place a bet. Better yet, think former people pleaser delivering a report to a pushy patient and not compelled to acquiesce to their demands to keep them around to potentially sabotage their practice.  For those that did not get "lucky" enough to develop strong inhibitory skills, don't despair, the gift of neuroplasticity is always there to serve you.  It is the genie in the bottle.  Literally, rub (train) it enough times and your wish is your brain's command....so what's the best way to train your brain and take advantage of this neuroplastic genie?

Stay tuned for Part II.

The Pre-servation of Life...for Humanity's sake

A man puts a syringe filled with heroin in his vein and is prepared to squeeze.  He has done this before, a thousand times maybe.  The action is rote.  It is automatic.  Yet on this day, at this moment, something happens.  Perhaps he read an inspiring book.  Pictured a loved one in his mind.  Looked out his window and saw something beautiful.  It doesn't matter.  Right now, he is beyond thought.  He is moving on impulse.  An impulse within him that has decided to serve Life itself before it serves the Little Self.  Without thinking, the man removes the unsqueezed syringe from his forearm.  He releases the rubber band.  He is suddenly clear that he will not shoot up again.  This clarity has come to him without thought.  It is simply a knowing.  His long struggle with heroin is over.  His "Push-Pull" battle is over.  Some would say that the power of his "Push-Away" conscious mind won out over the power of his "Pull-Towards" subconscious addiction....but is it that simple?

I have been giving some thought lately to the concept of instinct.  Is the above scenario a smaller, less obvious example of the woman who jumps in the water to save a drowning child despite not being able to swim?   Or, the man who runs into a burning house to save those trapped inside with no regards to his own life?  And what causes the person to freeze and do nothing in those situations?  What powerful forces overrides their instincts? Is it difficult to conceive that from another level of creation, one that is beyond the conscious or subconscious (perhaps super or supra- consciousness), preserving Life itself is the First choice before anything that you would consciously choose?  In other words, built somewhere in the Totality of our being, both physical and non-physical,  our first instinct is to preserve Life.  Now, let's make a play on words.......That which you pre-serve, you preserve.  Meaning, in order to preserve "it", you must serve it first.

I wrote earlier in the year that Life has 3 objective principles- principles which could not care less about how we feel about them.  Functionality, Adaptability and Sustainability.  Regardless of our agenda or our relative judgments of right or wrong, those 3 principles will assert themselves with or without Humanity.  Life does not care about morality, justice and ownership......we do.  You cannot destroy this system called "Life", it was here before us and will continue long after us.....if we choose.  We can also choose, as humanity, to stick around and not leave the party.  But in order to do that we must pre-serve it.

We, chiropractors, often scream and shout how we intend to "save the world" with our Life-giving adjustments.  Truth is, the world doesn't need saving.......Life doesn't need saving.  Humanity?  That's another story.  The sooner we realize we are a part of the system, not a product of it, the sooner we can act in ways that sees us in relationship with everything around us and not separate from it.  I'd like to think we, as chiropractors, pre-serve Life by saving Humanity from itself, one human at a time.  Removing obstacles to another person's built-in Instinctual (not automatic)Response to pre-serve Life is no small task, regardless of the methods you choose to do that.  The important result lies in our abilities to function, adapt and sustain......yes?

We can all unite around that concept, can't we?

As a huge Dr. Seuss fan.........

I would be remiss if I didn't post this..............

PS.  A New post is a-brewing.....stay tuned for some fresh insight on Chiropractic science and philosophy.

The Physics of the Brain- Part 3

In the previous post, we discussed the importance of the temporal component in the functioning of the brain.  That neuronal synchrony (or binding) of the seemingly endless bombardment of sensory stimuli reaching our nervous system is achieved via an underlying "beat".  It therefore behooves us to take an exploratory journey into the wild and wacky world of brain research to try and piece together what the source of this "beat" is.  It is here that I reveal to you, what I opine, is one of the greatest and most relevant studies for our profession ever...... and it hasn't gotten a glance by most.

But first, some background and some arousal (not sexual).

Over the years, functional and anatomical studies of the brain has identified the thalamus as the principal relay centre for all sensory information (except olfactory) to the cortex.  It is proposed that the series of networks and circuits which make up the thalamocortical system is responsible for cognition and perhaps even be the foundation for consciousness itself.

The nuclei of the thalamus are subdivided into 2 distinctively different functional units- the specific thalamic nuclei and the non-specific nuclei.  In other words, there are 2 simultaneous systems functioning at the same time:  A baseline non-specific arousal system (via intralaminar and posterior thalamic nuclei) and a sensory specific system (via ventral and lateral nuclei) which is superimposed on the baseline activity.  When we observe lesions to each of these sets of nuclei, we get a clear understanding of their distinct functions.  If, for example, there is a lesion to the specific nuclei there exist a loss of a specific sensory modality (i.e.-visual, auditory etc).  However, if there is a lesion to the non-specific nuclei, patients are unaware of any input by the specific nuclei and even though those pathways still exist and are intact, they cannot  perceive or respond to them.

The perception of any specific sensory stimulus from our environment is absolutely dependent on the constant input from non-specific nuclei.   When measured, via EEG, this constant activity has been observed to occur in bursts or oscillations (~40hz).    When sensory stimuli are presented, these oscillations show a "phase locking" which allows for the cognitive processing and temporal binding of  such sensory stimuli.  Like receiving a "beat" count before beginning to play.

So while we know that there are brain regions with a high degree of localized function and control, we also know that there is no single region responsible for the integration of perception and memories.  When researchers first hypothesized the solution to the binding problem, they discovered thru their experiments that when subjects, for example, recognized faces the electrical activity of different regions of the brain became synchronized for a moment.  The synchrony appeared to be established by brain regions firing in a similar manner, as 40hz gamma oscillations.

This discovery explained that neurons are not only linked in space (as in actual physical synaptic connections) but also time. The brain can now have virtually unlimited possible combinations of neurons with a resultant limitless capacity for retaining information.  There now exists a logical and rational explanation to the mechanisms by which multiple sensory events come together into a single experience.

So what is the source of these thalamocortical oscillations which is so vital for us binding all our sensory information together?  Well, at first it was thought that they were an intrinsic property of the thalamus which was genetically programmed.  But in 1992, two scientists named Pinault and Dechev (published in the journal of Psychological Resarch) found that when they transected the dorsal column of the spinal cords in rats, the rhythmic depolarization of 40hz oscillations in the thalamic nuclei could no longer be recorded.  They showed that the source of this baseline activity was not an intrinsic property of the thalamus but pre-synaptic to the thalamus.  That, in fact, the source of the oscillations were a product of the neurons of the dorsal column and deep midline cerebellum.  Ultimately, they arise mainly from the muscle and joint afferents of the SPINE.

So, in summary, baseline arousal activity, signal to noise ratio and synchronization of the cerebral hemispheres (and hence high level perception) is thought to result from non-specific thalamic nuclei which trace back to the subcortical oscillations originating from the dorsal column and cerebellum, which ultimately receive their input from the non-stop gravitational transductions derived from postural spinal muscles and joints.  This, as we chiropractors know, can be globally deficient and/or specifically decreased in specific areas.  What a unique and powerful set of lenses through which to grasp the impact of our adjustments.  Brings another level of clinical clarity and sense of awe to just how powerful a well delivered and precise adjustment can be- an approach that is rational, scientific and still embraces the time honoured wisdom of our original principles.

So when I first stumbled upon these concepts, this research and this level of understanding of the brain and nervous system, I wondered to myself what would it look like?  If I could peel away the skin and tissues of a living organism and be left with just a bunch of endless activated synapses and circuits lighting up endlessly like an overly lit up Christmas tree, what would that look like?  Well I'm watching a TED talk by Dr. Henry Markram, director of Blue Brain, a supercomputing project that can model components of the mammalian brain to precise cellular detail and simulate their activity in 3D, and he shows a computer simulation of a living rat's brainstem.  See if you can pick up the bursts of 40 hz oscillations responsible for the binding and therefore perception of sensory stimuli....I was stunned.  

So now for a new twist to the Harvey Lillard story as put forth by my Neurology Instructor, Dr. Melillo.  As you know, Harvey Lillard was a janitor who worked in the same building as Daniel David Palmer back in 1895.  Harvey was deaf and D.D. inquired of the man how this came to be.  Harvey proceeded to explain that it happened all of a sudden while lifting something, he heard a pop in his spine and from that time, he could not hear.  As the account goes, D.D. went to the area of the spine pointed out by Harvey and he performed the first chiropractic adjustment.  Harvey's hearing returned and the rest, as they say, is history.  Palmer, at the time, explained that the hearing returned based on the hypothesis that there was a connection between the spine and nervous system...a segmental connection emphasizing interference to the sensory pathways for hearing.  But what if by increasing the movement of spinal joints and allowing those postural muscles to stretch against the forces of gravity on a continuous basis, Harvey's baseline arousal levels was allowed to increase through the cerebellar, thalamic and spinal pathways.  This, in turn, resulted in an increase in the signal to noise ratio such that the same level of sound that could not be perceived previously, now is better able to summate and be processed.  

Food for thought.

  

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.

Syntropy (pt. 2)- The Physics of the Brain

In the last blog we discussed the fundamental assumption in classical thermodynamics- that structures move in a temporal progression from states of organization to disorganization.  This is known as the state of entropy.  While our high school experiments certainly showed that nothing contradicts the second law of thermodynamics within the realm of stable, closed systems, things are different in open, complex systems.  In complex systems, the direction is typically from disorganized to better organized.  We referred to this process as Syntropy.

Let's dig a little deeper.

Enter, Systems Theory and Systems Neuroscience,  since I, and many brilliant minds in this field (including some MIT and Harvard brains), see this as the future for research and therapeutic application of the Brain and Nervous System.

First, we must postulate.

"The nervous system is a pattern forming, self-organizing, non equilibrium system governed by nonlinear dynamical laws."


This concept of nonlinear governance of systems is not new to those familiar with Chaos Theory and its sub-branch Complexity theory.  There have been proponents of the idea that self organizing systems move towards increasing complexity and integration for years.  However, it is fair to say that most of what we know about the brain and its physiological operation has been discovered using linear methods.  The relationship between the parts and the whole has been a much debated topic (especially among reductionists and vitalists), and the field of Neuroscience is no exception.  Most studies in the past were carried out within either a top-down or bottom-up framework.

The new story of brain physics, with its new "postulatory"set of lenses, takes us on a new pioneering and groundbreaking journey.  This is because the complex behaviour of a dynamic system cannot easily be predicted or deduced from the behaviour of individual lower level entities, which is something chiropractors have been suggesting for years.  Yet now we no longer need to resort to religious entities or intangibilities to try and explain this Syntropic concept.

In open, complex systems (such as the brain) the constituents are interdependent on many levels.  The brain's emergence and evolution is based upon the cooperation and competition among it's parts.  There is bidirectional interaction between parts and the whole.  And then when this open, complex brain interacts with its environment, special things begin to happen.

The environment (which encompasses the outside world and other people) and the perturbations it provides allow the nervous system to show off its remarkable capacity for learning and growth despite being confined to relatively narrow homeostatic boundaries and simple rules.  In fact, it is this confinement where we witness certain brain "parts" gain dominance over others-  we call this inhibition.  Hermann Haken refers to this as "synergetics" or "order parameter"- essentially the simultaneous action of emergence and downward causation.  In this model, emergence through self-organization, as we have said, is bidirectional.

So now imagine the "bottom up" directional development of a child's nervous system interacting with its environment  where we have local to global causation creating novel and emerging dynamics.  As development progresses, we simultaneously create "above down" global to local determination which, essentially, "enslaves" the constituent parts and effectively governs local interactions.  There is no "agent" causing this "order", IT IS self-organized.  It is circular causation or what is known as "non symmetrical reciprocal causality".

It is this learning and growth or adaptive property of the brain where something greater than the sum of its parts can emerge and this "emergence" is thus qualitatively different from the level it springs from.  The evolving nervous system can now adapt its internal structure so that its dynamics can PREDICT more and more effectively  the consequences of the external perturbative forces acting upon it.  This has spawned some interesting papers with regards to intentionality and free will and caused some in the community to call for a reworking or novel approach to its meanings.

As a chiropractor, I am on pins and needles because  we are not only engaged in the understanding of this ground breaking  theoretical and experimental model of the brain but we have the tools and most rational application to bring it to the world and make an even bigger difference than we already have.

In my next post, I'd like to elaborate more on The Physics of the Brain and how it relates to what we do as chiropractors.  Stay tuned.

Entropy's forgotten sibling.......

You may be familiar with stories of sibling rivalry  where one sibling always seem to get the most attention and accolades while the other sibling is well......tolerated.  There may have been stories or a movie or two about the one sibling who is completely forgotten or not even known to exist.  I present to you Entropy's younger sister, Syntropy.  

I remember sitting in my high school chemistry classes and learning how thermal energy systems flow from high temperature regions to low temperature regions.  We also learned that, via the 2nd law of thermodynamics, entropy can give information about the evolution of an isolated system-such that if snapshots of a system at two different times shows one state which is more disordered, then we can determine "time's arrow".   In other words, the natural course of events for an isolated system is to move to a higher entropy (disordered) state.....but can it go the other way?

Enter Luigi Fantappie, an Italian mathematician.  If the law of entropy (en=diverging, tropos=tendency) exists then its opposite must do as well.  Syntropy (syn=converging, tropos= tendency) describes energy that concentrates and leads to increase differentiation, complexity, structures and order.  Fantappie noticed these properties in living systems and came to the conclusion that life is moved by final causes.  His mathematics (and now random number generator experiments) even suggest that convergent energy can move backwards in time.  What was previously regarded as impossible becomes possible....even possible to study retrocausal effects, where the effects arise before causes challenging the cause and effect model itself.  A look at its equation,

E2 = m2c4 + p2c2

Albert Szent-Gyorgi extends this concept of syntropy suggesting the existence of an energy symmetric and complementary to the one described by the principle of entropy.  He concluded that syntropy is the universal law of life, which is demonstrated constantly by the existence of livings systems.

"A major difference between amoebas and humans is the increase of complexity that requires the existence of a mechanism that is able to counteract the law of entropy.  In other words, there must be a force that is able to counter the universal tendency of matter towards chaos and energy towards dissipation.  Life always shows a decrease in entropy and an increase in complexity, in direct conflict with the law of entropy."

The chiropractor in me sees evidence of nature's remarkable ability to "syntropize" when I look at the fields of biomimicry, evolutionary biology, particle physics and neuroscience.  As I watch my patients' own physiology and biology move from entropic states of dis-organization, dis-order and dis-ease to ones of syntropic organization, order and ease, I remain grateful and blessed to bare witness.

Time for Entropy's younger sister to take centre stage.......what do you think?

A perspective on defining what chiropractic is....

I was recently privy to a fascinating discussion between a colleague I greatly respect and another chiropractor who is currently studying medicine.   A question was posed by the medical student, 

"Hello, I was wondering if I could ask a favour and ask for papers regarding the efficacy of chiropractic/HVLA on LBP. I've gathered a couple but would be nice to have a little more to share with medical students who largely have a negative attitude towards this profession."

The student later in the discussion talked about an incident where an orthopaedic surgeon presented to his class and on one of his slides there was a list of a half a dozen "alternative" modalities (including chiropractic).  The surgeon stated "They all don't work" in a definitive and authoritative manner.  When pressed by a student about what he thought about chiropractic and "manipulative" therapy, the surgeon responded that he didn't mind chiropractors and that they do some good, "After all, who wouldn't feel better after a back rub".  The chiro turned medical student was trying to pool resources to try and sway the others in his class to the efficacy of chiropractic care.

The reply from the chiropractor fascinated me.  He said that he believed that part of the problem is that the profession is too often defined by the "adjustment/manipulation".  

(I prefer the distinction between spinal adjustment and spinal manipulation to be made but others use them interchangeably so for the sake of the rest of this commentary, I will use adjustment. )

Then, when a patient case goes wrong, "chiropractic care/treatment" is called into question.  He deftly used the simile that this would be akin to defining medicine as "surgery" and therefore if a patient case goes wrong then medicine would be called into question.  But that's not what happens.  Because medicine isn't defined by any one therapeutic procedure or tool, its usually the individual clinician that is examined and its determined whether or not that procedure was an appropriate selection for that situation....or whether or not the procedure was performed competently.  Chiropractors don't get such luck.  We're all lumped together.

So we continue to battle this identity crisis.   Trying to define ourselves via the subluxation has been extraordinarily  difficult and now its seems that even though  the basis of our existence has been the success of the spinal adjustment (not the correction of the VSC), it too is proving to be an obstacle to our ascension to more respect by "mainstream" health care.  My colleagues argument that many professions "manipulate" is true and so I cannot begrudge his defining a profession as, 

"...a  body of knowledge, a skill base, a set of therapeutic tools, and a clinical framework for their intelligent and reasoned application."

Let's focus more on what we KNOW than what we DO because the emphasis on the adjustment is far too disproportionate in relation to the unique knowledge base and skill set we possess in the realm of spine and nervous system health.  The mantra of "Chiropractic doesn't work" is mistakenly defining us by our procedure.  So, now we fall into the trap of scrambling for research about that "procedure" to defend the stance that "Chiropractic works!".  We, essentially, play a hand in the creation and maintenance of this perception when we allow a misplaced focus on what we do.  Now it feels as though the validity of the entire chiropractic profession is on trial and that our existence depends upon this validation.

My colleague makes another very poignant point in how we can shift this focus by making some important distinctions in how we represent ourselves.  Chiropractic is not a "treatment".  Chiropractic is a profession.  The spinal adjustment is a treatment, or as I say, an application. So we don't DO chiropractic.  We ARE chiropractors.  As a profession, we are expert clinicians/diagnosticians in the domain of spinal health.  We possess a sophisticated base  of knowledge and manual skills that is specialized and unique in our approach to human health and illness.

So now we can reframe the discussion.  We can freely debate the effectiveness of spinal adjusting (or any other tool)in all sorts of situations, without needing to take a defensive position regarding the validity of the profession.  They are separate.  Like other health care professions, we are simply professionals engaged in intellectual inquiry regarding the mechanisms of our tools, no different from anyone else.

He makes another point, I did not consider.  With all this emphasis on the safety, cost and efficacy of spinal adjusting, have we ever considered shifting the focus to the cost and safety benefits of more effective diagnosis or assessment of spine pain (his example)?  Avoiding unnecessary and costly investigations with skillful clinical triage, knowing when other options can (and can't) be used and better managing the process to affect a better overall outcome.  This shifts the discussion to the value of what we KNOW and not just what we do. The public and the wider healthcare world, he argues, must value that first.  Then they will simply trust what we DO.  I completely agree.  

"The ones who know the most get trusted the most."

I have said this time and time again.  If we are going to present ourselves as spine and nervous system experts...then we must become masters at diagnosing and assessing these entities both in their world and in ours.

"Ultimately, the power and utility of any tool is proportional to the knowledge, expertise and reasoning ability underlying its use."

A thought experiment...

To illuminate the current situation with regards to the controversies in Chiropractic surrounding the profession’s many stances with regards to philosophy, I put forward a thought experiment.

Imagine 3 human tribes, which have 3 different lifestyles and ways of coping with problems.  The members of the first tribe are called the “Conservatives”.  They have a long written history, and the young members of the tribe are obliged to memorize this history and learn the lessons of the past.  The past is sacred, and past actions form a binding example for the members of the Conservative tribe to follow.  Many of the tribe’s men and women are busy maintaining their vast archives, memorizing and transmitting the wisdom written in their books.  These books have the answer to the changing patterns of life.  When things change, the Conservatives rely on their knowledge of the way their ancestors handled the situation, and do the same.  This often solves the problem, but when facing the totally unknown or unpredictable, the Conservatives are rather helpless.  Only very rarely and by accident (or by some hidden order) do some members of the tribe stumble on a solution and manage to survive such an emergency.  The survivors then become sanctioned as “ancestors”, and their deeds are added to the sacred books.

The people of the second tribe, the “Explorers”, have the very opposite philosophy.  They see that the world is in constant flux and often changes, and believe that, for many things, past experience is limiting and misleading, so should be forgotten.  The present and future require a constant process of reevaluation.  The Explorers stress the central role of individual discovery, and the lack of any preconceived ideas.  When they encounter an emergency, whether similar to past emergencies or completely new, they respond by encouraging everyone to find new creative solutions to the problem.  Usually someone does find a solution, which is then adopted by all the members of the tribe, but often many perish before this solution is found.

The members of the third tribe, the “Interpreters”, respect the past, just like the Conservatives, but they are not bound by it in the same way, and encourage exploration and controlled deviation from tradition.  According to their philosophy, their ancestors had divine wisdom, and their sacred words must be the inspiration for all times, but the deep wisdom of the ancestors is written in metaphorical language.  This means it requires a new interpretation in each generation, according to the changing needs of the society, but still in accordance with certain rules.  When they face a state of emergency that is similar to one described in their books, interpretation is easy and they act more or less like their ancestors, slightly updating their behaviour according to the needs of the present.  They give freedom to their interpretative imagination, and try to find new solutions that do not contradict the old wisdom.

Which tribe do you belong to?

The Basic Principles of Life

*One of the habits I have in making my writings public is to minimize naming the source of the materials I use when connecting ideas.  It is not to try and pass it off as original to me but to minimize the bias that tends to emerge when source and content are presented together.  People will often allow their prejudice of the source cloud their judgment on the content solely on its merits.

The term "Revolution" means to "revolve", or to turn around.  So in the context of a "revolutionary idea", it would represent an idea that would figuratively "turn around" your current view of reality.  In this light, I present to you a quote I read recently,

"Nothing in a person's race, gender, nationality, religious persuasion, sexual orientation, or any other aspect of individuality, shall disqualify that person from participating fully and equally in the human experience at the highest level."


If I were to create a new "Declaration of Independence" or "Constitution" for not just this country but the Earth, I think I might have to include the above as one of its main tenets.  I could add at the end "...so long as that participation does not impinge upon the rights or safety of others.", but somehow it seems to take away from the aesthetics of how it was written......and it should probably be implied anyways.

So now we must ask- What (or who) would prevent this type of  seemingly logical solution to persecution, hatred, violence and war from manifesting itself?  If we agree, as a whole (or even a majority), that this would be a path to peace on earth, assuming that is what we all say we want, how do we go about achieving that goal?  I can suggest three 3 concepts that are exclusive to humanity and therefore created by man that could point to some insights.  I say exclusive and man-made because I see absolutely no evidence of these concepts existing in other lifeforms that exist in nature.
1.  Morality
2.  Justice
3.  Ownership

Just about  every form of social convention, custom, political institution, economic system, punishment system, philosophical concept, religious doctrine that there exists , either all or some faction of these concepts, drives its existence and sustains its influence.  We have stitched together this tapestry of interweaving spiritual, philosophical, political and economic concepts and given it the power to govern our collective experience.  Its "the way things are", we say.  Beliefs, which perhaps are false.....Mental constructions, which perhaps are harmful literally producing our outer experiences of the world.  Beliefs which drives Conventions.....Conventions which drive behaviours.....Behaviours which produce our "reality".

No doubt, for humans to change their most basic beliefs and value systems that no longer serve us remains our most difficult challenge.  It took the Catholic Church 300 years to grant Galileo an official pardon for his confirmation of Copernicus' discovery that the earth "revolved" (there's that term again) around the sun.  We are a stubborn bunch.

To illustrate best these concepts in action, lets use examples:
-  The father kicking out his unwed pregnant daughter.
-  The rebuking of a son or daughter for marrying outside his faith or race.
-  The beating or disownment of a son for being gay.
-  A 23 yr old woman strapping a bomb to her body and walking into a crowd in Jerusalem.
-  A nation occupying the land of another for decades, essentially subjugating them, and then taking desperate measures and becoming angry because they became angry.
and the list goes on........

There is a set of Basic Life Principles that seem to lie behind all of existence and humanity could potentially be on the cusp of understanding them at a deeper level.  All of life demonstrates them.  It has been suggested that the human mental constructions of Morality, Justice and Ownership are clouding these Basic Life Principles and preventing their expression.  The expression of which would make all the difference between what we seek to evolve to and what currently is reality today.  What if,

We could elevate the concept of Morality to the Principle of Functionality.
We could elevate the concept of Justice to the Principle of Adaptability.
We could elevate the concept of Ownership to the Principle of Sustainability.

It would of course require that we continue (I believe this process has been going on for awhile) to lift the veil of separation between our choices and its consequences, our behaviours and others.....our bodies and the bodies of others.  For instance, and this may be too esoteric for some, but what if we considered the idea that "Your body is yours, but it is not you."  That the essence of "you" extends beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies, and that this "essence" or "energy field" has no physical place where my energy stops and your "essence" or "energy field" begins.  Essentially its like the air in our house- there are separate rooms but only "one air".  Well thats just Spirit or Soul you're describing, you say.  Yes, perhaps...but I am less concerned about the labels you may give it than the implications this idea has if ever we were to adopt it from a practical point of view.  If that easily visible concept reminds me that what's Functional, Adaptable and Sustainable for human life should be first and foremost in how I choose to live than I can stay congruent with Life's Principles and not potentially harmful mental constructions.  It may just be that I am rehashing the idea of interconnectedness and expressing it in another way but some things are worth repeating, don't you think?

The Philosophy of ADIO and the Neuroscience of OIBU- Irony at its best.

*For the purpose of this piece, I will use brain as a term to include the nervous system in its entirety which is prudent since you cannot separate the two anyways.

Traditionally, one of the philosophical constructs considered sacred by many in the chiropractic profession is that of Above Down Inside Out.  This mental construct plays a dual role- on the one hand it,  describes how the flow of intelligence (via impulses) starts from the brain, projects down to the spinal cord and flows over the nerves to end at a specific end tissue or organ to regulate its function.  On the other hand, the pneumonic is a representation of the chiropractic approach to health and well-being, in that the cause of health comes from inside the patient.  On a more subtler level it is used to make the distinction between the biomedical model of "getting the disease" and the vitalistic model of "losing health".  Therefore, the term ADIO became a rallying cry for the chiropractic profession and Outside In Below Up was used to describe the biomedical approach (maybe even vilify it to some extent).

Before I get to the irony part, I'd like to bring a conceptual model to the table- The Cone Model.  I was first exposed to the Cone Model by John DeMartini and like any model, I prefer to not say whether its true or false, just whether it is more or less useful.  The Cone Model represents a proposed universal law, put forth by many philosophers, known as the Law of the One and the Many-  This idea suggests that all is one, completely unified, at a high enough level of abstraction and development, and that everything else consists of varying degrees of dichotomy and contradiction.  It is also referred to as the law of  "similars and differences" or my favourite, the law of Entropy-Syntropy.  As a quick  attempt at definition and clarity- Entropy is the tendency for disorder, randomness or disorganization to submerge out of order and organization while Syntropy is the tendency for order or organization to emerge out of disorder or chaos.  Nature maintains equilibrium between these two governing and directive forces.

So what does this have to do with ADIO-OIBU?  Well I wondered if the anti-chiropractic concept of Outside-In-Below-UP could exist somewhere in Chiropractic as a balance to ADIO.  And this may have occurred to some of you already, but having gained a tremendous amount of new knowledge and insight into the areas of evolutionary biology, epigenetics and neuroscience for the last year or so, my mind made some new synaptic connections regarding the development (ontogeny) and evolution (phylogeny) of the human nervous system as a representation of OIBU.  NO!  YOU SAY, BLASPHEMY, YOU SAY!  Yes, the very system we claim is the "master system", "the seat of the human experience" and the one system the gods of chiropractic has charged us with the mighty task of being experts and caretakers of.

Let's review what the world of the sciences are thinking with regards to the human brain in 2012 in point form:
-  The brain can no longer be considered a fixed structure, with spatially distributed light switches (neurons) and well placed fuseboxes (control centres) that just get turned on and off.
-  Disease and disability cannot just be explained through localized lesions to specific  centres in the brain (including subluxation).  It turns out we cannot explain all that the brain is capable of through localization of function alone.
-   The brain is a much more dynamic organ than previously considered.  Because of this, it created a much more complex problem which drove more questions such as-  How does the brain take all of these individual areas with their individual sensory inputs and merge them into one coherent perception of the world?  This became known as the Binding Problem.
-  It would seem that some brave evolutionists (despite what wikipedia says)are bringing back the once ridiculed Recapitulation Theory that states- Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny-  which, in plain english, means that in developing from embryo to adult, animals (including humans) go through stages resembling the successive stages in evolution of their remote ancestors.  Long live Ernst Haeckel (the modern originator of this theory)!
- What this means is that the development of cognitive abilities in a child mirrors the phylogenetic evolution of cognition in the human species.  It is built on MOTOR DEVELOPMENT.  Human children only achieve self awareness after they have successfully achieved bipedalism and have developed a smooth coordinated gait.
-  So in essence, as Golden Brain award winner Daniel Wolpert says, the only reason we have a brain is for complex and adaptable movement ("its why sea squirts eat their own brains", he says).  This demoralized the entire Artificial intelligence and technology community because they realized that nothing truly intelligent is going to develop in a bodiless mainframe.
-  Now the "Embodiment theory" of cognition is a hot buzz word in Neuroscience and it has spurred on other hot buzz words in the community such as "Default Mode Network" (which is gravity-induced consciousness which ties into posture and alignment...woohoo!!).
-  And those HGP (Human Genome Project) people keep revising the number of genes we have downward.....ummmm.

So we have a situation (or theory) where bipedalism evolved initially because it conserved energy, but the awesome exaptation (or unintended (?) byproduct) of that was a larger, more complex and more developed brain because to achieve a habitual bipedal posture we would have to evolve the most coordinated and synchronized motor system of any animal in history.  And in order to do that we would have to build the brain from the bottom up.......wait......what?!.....did you say build the brain from the BOTTOM UP?!  Yes, I did and in order to do that, we have to gather sensory input from the environment  (OUTSIDE) and bring it IN......GASP!!!  Did you just say that our brains develops from OUTSIDE-IN-BELOW-UP?  Yes.

"And thats why primitive reflexes exist- so that in order to sense our environment, we have to move in our environment?"
Yes.
"And thats why our genes only provide the most very basic scaffolding structure in our brains and that environmental experience provides the stimulation needed for more sophisticated processing?"
Yes.
"And thats the reason we don't remember our early childhood and that mirror self recognition only begins at age 2 is because this sophisticated processing doesn't exist prior to that?"
Yes.

Outside In stimulation leads to Bottom Up vertical integration in  the developing brain before  horizontal integration and more sophisticated lateral processing occurs.  Then.....and only then... can we get Above Down Inside Out regulation.  So here's my new Cone Model,

"Well that's ironic."
I know.