Whole report - Anglo-European College of Chiropractic

Texas Visit
In 2001, Dr. Jeff Bagust took a month’s study leave to
visit the laboratories of Professor W G Willis in
Galveston, Texas. Prof Willis is one of the world’s
top experimental spinal physiologists, and his
laboratory specialises in pain physiology, with
particular emphasis on inflammatory pain. A major
area of current interest is the role that nervous activity
travelling backwards along sensory nerves from the
spinal cord to the periphery – the Dorsal Root Reflex –
may have in the generation of peripheral
inflammation.
Professor W G Willis (left) and Dr. Jeff Bagust (right) in the
research laboratory, Galveston, Texas.
Jeff had worked on the dorsal root reflex for many years
before joining the AECC, and was invited by Prof Willis
to visit Galveston to investigate the pharmacology of
the dorsal root reflex using an isolated spinal cord
preparation that he has developed. Whilst there, Jeff
gave a seminar on “The Isolated Spinal Cord and the
Dorsal Root Reflex”.
The visit was very successful. It was shown that the
sensory nerves leaving the spinal cord exhibit two
different patterns of antidromic (backwards)
discharges, which can be distinguished using a
convulsant agent, muscimol. In the absence of
muscimol, the dorsal root reflex consists of bursts of
large amplitude action potentials, but this activity is
abolished by low concentrations of muscimol (2µM)
and replaced by activity in nerve fibres producing very
small action potentials, typical of those carrying pain
signals. It seems probable that it is this small amplitude
activity that is responsible for the spread of
inflammatory reaction and pain to sites distant from
an area of damaged tissue.
This work has been published in Neuroscience Letters,
2002; 330: 139-142.
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Cutaneous Sensitivity
Palpation is one of the major investigative techniques
used by chiropractors, and a considerable amount
of time is spent by students at the AECC learning
palpatory techniques. Palpatory skills are essentially
subjective and difficult to quantitate, but a series of
three BSc projects (PS Chandhok, IE Foster, MC de
Jager) have attempted to measure aspects of sensory
acuity that might contribute to palpatory ability and
be expected to change with training.
Two parameters have been measured; 2 point
discrimination threshold (2-PD)- a measure of the
minimum distance between a pair of points touched
on the tip of the index finger that can be identified as
two, and not one; and the thickness of paper through
which a thin nylon monofilament can be accurately
located (the Palpation Threshold).
Comparison of 1 st year students who had no training
in palpation, with 5 th year students who were using
palpation techniques in the clinic on a daily basis,
showed that the experienced group were able to
identify two points touched on the skin more easily
than the inexperienced students, and they were also
able to locate the filament under a greater thickness
of paper.
This indicates that the fingers of the 5 th year students
were more sensitive than those of the 1 st year students,
giving support to the suggestion that it is possible to
improve palpatory ability by appropriate training.
1.82
1.27
2-Point Discrimination (2-PD) and Palpation Thresholds (PT) obtained from
1 st and 5 th year chiropractic students. (Mean ± SEM)
3.36
3.92