The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a relatively new concept in the world of neuroscience. This is the part of our brain that chugs along when we are not focused on tasks. It’s whirring away in the background when we are daydreaming, when our minds are wandering and when we are introspecting. Here, in the Default Mode is where our thoughts and feelings about ourselves percolate, where our emotions are processed and where we imagine our futures and recall our past.
These are the functions that occur inside the default mode, but neuroscientists have highlighted the brain regions that make it all happen: the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, the precuneus and the angular gyrus. As the house of our self-concept, meaning-making, and our ability to adapt to new situations, we are beginning to understand the power of this network in maintaining wellbeing in a broad sense.
So what on earth has this got to do with chiropractic?
Since the profession of chiropractic was in its infancy, the philosophy of chiropractic has talked about our ability to express life when we are free of subluxations. But somewhere in the middle, conversation shifted to merely back and neck pain. It seems that we have been working our way back from there – to talking about non-musculoskeletal problems, to brain effects and now to seeing that chiropractic indeed influences this Default Mode.
It’s a discovery that chiropractic researcher, Dr Heidi Haavik, recalled recently saying “Chiropractic touches peoples soul.”
How? This is the topic of a recent paper in which it was discovered that chiropractic care elicited neuroplastic responses in the brain, and had broad impacts on Pain, Mood, Sleep and Quality of life. [1] While the academic journal-worthy title might stop short of the true impact of the findings, it did discuss how brain scans, Fitbit data, and SEP and EEG readings pre- and post-chiropractic care showed significant changes in brain wave amplitudes in these brain regions. When compared with questionnaire data, researchers were able to see how these changes manifested in functional aspects of a person’s life. This wasn’t just about symptoms. It was about behavioural, subjective and neurophysiological change.
These positive changes spanned improved sleep, decreased depression and anxiety symptoms and decreases in pain. But the brain changes that occurred within this time frame is where the study became truly revealing.
We reported on this paper earlier on in the year, revealing that the N30 amplitude decreased significantly. This occurred immediately after chiropractic care and continued to decline after 4 weeks of chiropractic care. Interestingly, no changes were observed in the control group.
This is a significant finding, given that this particular brain impulse is in response to somatosensory evoked potentials, or electrical signals in the brain in response to stimuli. The N30 commonly increases in response to abnormal excitatory stimuli, such as disorders of the basal ganglia, which drives motor control. How this specific finding relates to subluxation could become very important in time. Other brain wave forms changed too, with Theta, Alpha and Beta waves increasing and Delta waves decreasing.
Here is where the rubber hits the road for chiropractic philosophy and science. We now know that
“Chronic problems, such as chronic musculoskeletal pain, as well as common chronic disorders such as anxiety and depression have been found to have clear deficits in access, engagement and disengagement of the DMN. Not only have such disorders shown changes within the DMN, but also between the DMN and other networks, including various sensory networks, pain networks, the salience network and the fronto-parietal (goal-oriented) networks. The changes within the DMN and between the DMN and other networks provide a neuro-biological explanation for why these problems (e.g., pain, anxiety and depression) become embodied, i.e., they become an integral part of the person’s sense of self, making treatment difficult.
It is thought that when suffering is ongoing long-term the feelings of pain may become part of one’s internal self-story, and, similarly, ongoing worry can develop into anxiety and ongoing sadness can become depression. It is, therefore, fascinating to see that chiropractic care can alter functional connectivity within the DMN in a manner that coincides with improvements in pain, depression, anxiety, fatigue and sleep. It is likely that the functional connectivity changes found within the DMN in the current study between the pre-intervention recording and post 4 weeks of chiropractic care reflects a difference in how the study participants were reflecting on themselves and their everyday experiences over time. The participants appear to be altering their constructed sense of self and how they understand their own mental states over the four weeks of care. At the end of the 4 weeks of chiropractic care, these participants reported significantly less depressive, anxious and pain symptoms. Thus, their self-reflection after 4 weeks of care appears now to be more positive, since they also reported experiencing less pain, less fatigue, less anxiety and less depression and improved sleep.” [1]
Essentially, when we adjusted the subluxation, we create neuroplastic changes in the Default Network that allows a person to change their story about how they experience life.
This is how chiropractic can touch a person’s soul. This is where philosophy and science align. What does it mean in practice, though? Take good notes at the beginning. After a long period under chiropractic care, your patients may just forget how bad things were when they first walked in.
The original story and paper can be found at the references below. Members can also access our interview with Dr Heidi on this important topic. All of these pieces capture more of the research and data detail.
One thing is for sure. It’s an exciting time to be in chiropractic research.
References
1. Haavik, H., Niazi, I.K., Amjad, I., Kumari, N., Ghani, U., Ashfaque, M., Rashid, U., Navid, M.S., Kamavuako, E.N., Pujari, A.N., et al. Neuroplastic Responses to Chiropractic Care: Broad Impacts on Pain, Mood, Sleep, and Quality of Life. Brain Sci. 2024, 14, 1124.
2. Staff Writer, “New Chiropractic paper shows brain changes and impacts on pain, mood, sleep and quality of life.” https://spinalresearch.com.au/new-chiropractic-paper-shows-brain-changes-and-impacts-on-pain-mood-sleep-and-quality-of-life/
