Participants in this study were asked to simultaneously perform a postural and suprapostural dual task before and after receiving either a lower or upper extremity manipulation. Both upper- and lower-extremity manipulation influenced dual task performance. Lower extremity manipulation with eyes open significantly reduced tube motion as assessed by roll pathlength, range and RMS, whereas both upper and lower extremity manipulation reduced COP movement on a force plate as assessed by ML postural sway. SampEn, a measure of movement structure and periodicity, provided no further insight into tube roll or postural sway, in contrast to our expectations from previous work.
Research on spinal manipulation has shown changes in volitional muscle activity [9], voluntary range of motion [15], biomechanical and structural changes [16], complex whole-body motor response task [17], movement time [18] and joint position sense [19]. As their effects extend beyond the local anatomical area of manipulation, it has been postulated that these changes may be driven by downstream cortical stimulation rather than spinal or local influences [20]. Similarly, in this study, we found that chiropractic manipulation of the extremities influenced both upper and lower extremity-based task performance.
In this study, participants’ performance on the tube balancing task was modulated by an interaction between lower extremity manipulation and the participants’ visual condition. In the eyes open condition, lower extremity manipulation led to decreased values of tube roll parameters, indicating enhanced stability. The importance of visual information to joint manipulative effects is inherently pragmatic/useful, as most chiropractic patients are utilizing visual information throughout their daily activities; however, it is still not known how the central nervous system combines relevant somatosensory and visual information for such control. One possibility may be that (“noninformative”) vision improves haptic perceptions of peripersonal space [13]. More work is needed to better understand the relationship between manipulation and vision.
The interplay between the visual and somatosensory systems has been elicited in many postural studies, particularly in work concerning muscle and tendon vibration. Mancheva et al [21] found that motor evoked potentials from transcranial magnetic stimulation during tendon vibration varied depending on whether subjects’ eyes were open or closed [21]. Lackner and Levine [22] showed simultaneous vibration of the neck and Achilles tendons could induce nystagmoid eye movements and Bove et al [23] found that vibration over postural muscles could alter proprioceptive integration, leading to changes in body tilt and rotation [22, 23]. From our findings, we propose that joint manipulation of the extremities may stimulate the same primary and secondary afferents stimulated by muscular and tendon vibration and that these changes in somatosensation can facilitate cortical changes and alter motor outputs [20, 24–26].
According to Pacheco et al [27] in the ecological theory of perception and action, enhanced stability (e.g. tube stabilization) occurs from the attunement of the perceptual systems to task dynamics together with modifications of action as task and intrinsic dynamics cooperate and/or compete. Chiropractic manipulation may then modulate the properties of the perceptual-motor workspace of participants. The prevailing thought on the neurophysiological impact of spinal/extremity manipulation is one of perceptual attunement brought about by mechanisms related to greater afferentation by peripheral receptors [28–30]; however, our consistent interaction effects suggest the modulation of visual perception may also be a possibility. Furthermore, the action capabilities of the participant are likely promoted by enhanced neural drive through supraspinal, spinal or extremity-based mechanisms [20, 31, 32].
As described in the introduction, previous work by this team found that ipsilateral upper and lower extremity manipulations affected participant performance during a lower extremity balance task (standing on a rocker board) [11]. In that study, both upper and lower extremity manipulations led to decreased pathlength as measured on a rocker board. While participants in the current study stood on a force plate (rather than a rocker board), again, both upper and lower extremity manipulation led to decreased ML pathlength (in this case COP pathlength). This is particularly interesting as this effect is found irrespective of whether the manipulations involved a single limb (previous study) or both limbs (current study). While comparing the magnitudes of single vs bilateral limb manipulation effects would be overly speculative given the differences between the two studies, this is an interesting question that could be addressed in future studies.
It is important to note that we did not capture the segmental (or multi-segmental) strategies used by participants in this study. Collecting such data may be able to resolve why contrary to our hypothesis, upper extremity manipulation had no effect on tube stabilization, but did reduce ML postural sway. Such information would also likely explain why lower extremity manipulation consistently aided tube stability. Despite the opacity of strategies utilized, participant performance is still consistent with an ecological model; joint manipulation afforded participants greater stability during dual task performance. We suggest that further research is necessary to understand how extremity manipulations afforded the aforementioned improvement in performance.
While these results are novel, they require replication. This study is also limited in that it examined only healthy, asymptomatic, adult participants. While many interesting effects can become more pronounced in clinical populations, many effects can also disappear entirely. These results do not currently, and may not necessarily generalize beyond a healthy, asymptomatic population. Future work should investigate these effects in special populations, and, particularly, the elderly, where balance and falls are major factors in injury and loss of independence.