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The Proprioceptive Nervous System

© Dr. David L. Phillips

Proprioception is the most important part of the nervous system to a chiropractor. Many spinal problems can be traced to alterations in the proprioceptive nervous system. Curvatures, sway backs, straight necks, military spines, anterior head carriage, most postural problems and subluxations galore are all due to this vast and complicated system.

Proprioception is body awareness in space. It’s what allows you to be able to touch your finger to your nose with your eyes closed, walk a straight line, or stand up in a boat. Needless to say, this part of your brain is one of the first affected by alcohol.

A large part of proprioception involves the semi-circular canals of the ear, but also every single muscle, joint and tendon has built in what are referred to as “mechanoreceptors” that feed information constantly to your brain so that you know where your limbs are at all times. Each and every movement of your head, shoulders, knees and toes stretches mechanoreceptors and inundates your brain with impulses that it sorts out into positional awareness.

Another important part of your proprioceptive system is your eyes. Eyes always seek a level horizon and make up a complicated thing called “the righting reflex”. Cats have a wonderful righting reflex; always landing on their feet.

I don’t want to make this overly complicated (or boring), so let’s not go too much deeper into neuroanatomy here. Rather, let’s look at some practical examples so that you might be able to relate to your proprioceptive system.

I’m sure you have experienced temporary discomfort stemming from your proprioceptive nervous system. Motion sickness is a common result of upsetting it. A classic example occurs when you are on a train that is not moving and another train comes along on the next track. We tend to get disoriented and nauseated if we look at this other train. Why? Because signals to our brain get mixed up. One set of impulses, those from our semi-circular canals, are telling the brain that we are at rest; while our eyes are telling the brain we are moving. Vertigo is the resultant feeling.

Another common example occurs if you stand on a bridge looking down at a fast moving river. Soon you will feel as if you too are moving.

When a student pilot is learning to fly using only instruments, s/he must learn to control these aspects of proprioception. Many times an inexperienced pilot flying in clouds will doggedly determine that the airplanes instruments have failed as they are giving visual information that is obviously at odds with his sense of spatial awareness. If you were blindfolded in an aircraft and the pilot went into a gradual but ever increasing turn, you could be at quite a steep angle without knowing it. If the pilot suddenly brought the plane to straight and level, you would swear that the aircraft was in a steep and precipitous bank.

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