The Potential Effects of Mechanical Faults of the Spine on Cerebrospinal and Interstitial Fluid Flow in the Brain Chiropractors commonly encounter spinal conditions associated with autonomic concomitants attributable to somatovisceral or, conversely, viscerosomatic reflexes.
Autonomic reflexes affect all the organs and blood vessels of the body including the brain.
This relationship is easy for chiropractors to understand. After all, the first chiropractic patient was a deaf man. However, degenerative conditions of the spine may have an even greater impact on brain physiology than just mechanical irritation of nerve fibers. This water jacket cushions the brain from the hard walls of the cranial vault and its foramen and fissures, as well as from the dural sheaths of the falx cerebri and the tentorium cerebelli. In fact, the brain floats in CSF and its weight is thus reduced to 20 percent of its dry weight.