The Brain & Body Connection

The brain changes in response to sensory input and environmental experiences. The brain learns and grows exponentially during infancy and childhood, but can continue to change according to experiences through neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability for the brain to change at any change. The brain used to be considered "hard wired", now researchers have found that is more "plastic" in nature; bendable and moldable.

Stimulation given through repetition creates new neural connections and this stimulation done in a specific frequency/duration strengthens those connections - myelinating the nerve cells. The brain changes and grows as it receives new information. Research indicates the more input brain cells receive, the better their organization, function, and processing speed.

Increasing the amount of multi-sensory information activates cognitive centers for attention, organization, learning, motor skills, and inhibits impulses. Multi-sensory input can come from a variety of sources. Anything that provides new information to the visual system, tactile system, vestibular system, auditory, smell or proprioception. When we are looking at a child that has a disconnect between their brain and body, providing the body more information to understand how it moves and how it interacts with the environment, helps to improve the connection.

Children with neurodevelopmental delays may often appear like they have a brain-body disconnect. We may see it in children with more severe cases, such as those with apraxia. Or we see children that have a less obvious disconnect who have impaired coordination, difficulty controlling their body with emotions (aggression, outbursts, etc), or having an inability to stop themselves from doing a repetitive movement.

With these children we first need to look at primitive reflexes. Primitive reflexes are housed in our brain stem. When they are integrated they create the foundation of our nervous system that allows our motor skills & cognitive skills to develop appropriately. Integrated reflexes allow our brain to connect to our body and have emotional control. Children with retained primitive reflexes are often in a fight-or-flight state, anxious, emotionally reactive, and do not have independent control over their body. Primitive reflexes are automatic motor movements that occur after a specific sensory stimulus. Once the reflex arc is repeated over and over again the reflex is integrated and evolves into our postural reflexes that remain with us for life and provide postural stability and full capability of our cognitive skills.

Delayed development of the cerebellum is also linked to many learning and behavioral disorders such as dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. When the cerebellum is not functioning properly, one's ability to acquire new skills is impaired. The absence of automaticity requires having to start over, again and again. A child with apraxia has difficulty initiating movements. A child with dyspraxia has trouble doing this movements smoothly. Either way motor movements are not automated in the cerebellum making it more difficult to have room to learn new cognitive skills.

So what can we do to help improve the brain-body connection? First, off we need to assess and integrate any retained primitive reflexes. In conjunction with reflex work, is core/postural stability strengthening. During this time we should balance the brain hemispheres in order to improve integration of the sensory systems. All of this work will help to create new neural pathways. Finally, we need to strengthen these new pathways to myelinate them, with repetition.

To learn more about our approach and how we coach parents in developing the brain from the bottom-up, head to our website here: https://www.brainconnextherapy.com/our-approach