Chiropractic care is frequently utilised by infants and children for wellbeing and various health concerns. Considering the utilisation and apparent benefits of chiropractic care for infants, but the significant lack of research exploring the mechanisms and neurophysiological effects of chiropractic adjustments on infants, it is necessary to explore these potential effects further. This research aims to investigate the feasibility of conducting a randomised controlled trial (RCT) utilising Electroencephalogram (EEG) and heart rate variability (HRV) to measure changes to the central and autonomic nervous system (ANS) following chiropractic care in preterm infants. Preterm infants are at a heightened risk of developing deficits in neuromotor development and cognitive and executive functions and thus are an important group to investigate potential benefits of chiropractic care.

Grant Value: $9,960
Chief Investigator: Dr Jenna Duehr – New Zealand College of Chiropractic
Status: In Progress

Clinical Applications:
This study has provided excellent information on the practical feasibility of recording EEG and ECG in young infants. The information has allowed data collection procedures to be refined for future use in a planned larger scale study that will explore brain development and function changes in infants receiving chiropractic care over 2 months. The analysis of the EEG data will provide us more information on certain feasibility aspects

Researcher update:

  • February 2026
    Data analysis for EEG has been completed, data analysis of ECG is almost complete. Once data analysis is completed a manuscript will be prepared. Project should be complete by mid 2026.
  • July 2025
    Due to ethics restrictions, data was only gathered for full term infants. The remainder of the project remains the same- feasibility of recording EEG and ECG in infants receiving chiropractic care to explore the potential neurophysiological effects.
    Data collection has been completed for this study and the pre-processing of the EEG and ECG data is being carried out with data analysis to follow.  It is hoped that the project will be complete by the end of 2025.
  • January 2025
    Ethics have been approved and recruitment and data collection will start mid 2025, after Jenna has her PhD candidate ship confirmed.

Posters:

Association of Chiropractic Colleges Educational Conference and Research Agenda Conference, March 2026. KansasÂ