Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums

You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members, upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, access other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisements in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!

  1. Have you considered the Clinical Biomechanics Boot Camp Online, for taking it to the next level? See here for more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
Have you considered the Clinical Biomechanics Boot Camp Online, for taking it to the next level? See here for more.
Dismiss Notice
Have you liked us on Facebook to get our updates? Please do. Click here for our Facebook page.
Dismiss Notice
Do you get the weekly newsletter that Podiatry Arena sends out to update everybody? If not, click here to organise this.

Exciting New Research on Effect of Foot Orthoses on Brain Wave Patterns

Discussion in 'Biomechanics, Sports and Foot orthoses' started by Kevin Kirby, Apr 5, 2013.


  1. Members do not see these Ads. Sign Up.
    I'm lecturing at the 2013 Pedorthic Association of Canada Annual Symposium today in Montreal along with Drs. Reed Ferber and Joe Hamill. So far it has been a very interesting conference with about 275 seminar registrants.

    This morning, Colin Dombroski, PhD, C. Ped gave a very interesting presentation on a pilot study he just completed showing that the frontal cortex electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns in subjects was reduced when they wore custom foot orthoses while they walked at a self-selected pace, while their EEG pattern was increased when they did not wear foot orthoses to walk.

    Colin hypothesized that the orthoses reduced the frontal cortex activity by possibly reducing the neural processes that control walking gait patterns in the subjects they tested. Dr. Dombroski's research has just been completed in the last few weeks and I think it is some of the most exciting preliminary research I have seen on foot orthoses in quite a few years.

    Even though there are more questions than answers with this type of research, it is good to see Colin and colleagues taking on this important subject that may help us understand how foot orthoses work and may help explain their variability of function.

    I will see if I can get Colin to comment directly here on Podiatry Arena to give us all a better understanding of his research.

    Great job, Colin!!:drinks
     
  2. Which part of the frontal cortex? That's a big area of the brain with lots of functions attributed to it?
     
  3. I forgot now. I told Colin to come on board Podiatry Arena to explain his research further.

    Emotiv is the device they used to look at EEG patterns. Emotiv is also used for such things as controlling video games.
     
  4. Paul Bowles

    Paul Bowles Well-Known Member

    The chiro's are going to hate this with their "proprioceptive" theories on orthotics!
     
  5. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

    Articles:
    8
    Does this mean foot orthotics can make you smarter? :pigs:
     
  6. Kenva

    Kenva Active Member

    Looking forward to read more about this!
     
  7. Brian A. Rothbart

    Brian A. Rothbart Well-Known Member

    Hi Paul,

    Actually, the preliminary results of this research dove tail my research over the past several decades. Mainly, I have theorized that proprioceptive insoles basically reprogram the cerebellum, resulting in the global postural shifts (i.e., changing CNS activity).

    Cheers,
    Prof Brian
     
  8. Paul Bowles

    Paul Bowles Well-Known Member

    Possibly, I am not denying what or what does not or may or may not happen Brian but its not proprioceptive..... Maybe a better choice of word to describe may be more appropriate.

    Exteroception - sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body
    sensitivity, sensitiveness, sensibility - (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation

    Proprioception (pron.: /ˌproʊpri.ɵˈsɛpʃən/ PRO-pree-o-SEP-shən), from Latin proprius, meaning "one's own", "individual" and perception, is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. It is distinguished from exteroception, by which one perceives the outside world.

    I too would love to see some more data on this - we have to be very certain about what exactly we are measuring here as I am sure correlations play a huge part.
     
  9. Brian A. Rothbart

    Brian A. Rothbart Well-Known Member

    Hi Paul,

    No, I think proprioception is the best term to describe the class of insoles used to change the posture globally.
     
  10. HansMassage

    HansMassage Active Member

    "Exteroception - sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body
    sensitivity, sensitiveness, sensibility - (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation

    Proprioception (pron.: /ˌproʊpri.ɵˈsɛpʃən/ PRO-pree-o-SEP-shən), from Latin proprius, meaning "one's own", "individual" and perception, is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. It is distinguished from exteroception, by which one perceives the outside world."

    I don't want to get into the animosity between Rothbart and all but my expectation is that the research will indicate that exeroception will note that a change on the outside has changed the propreoception because of the change of position in body parts in relation to each other.

    My thesis is that every change of position body parts causes a reflex change in position of other body parts. I have documented my observations of the relation to upper body with the foot at http://reflexposturology.weebly.com/

    I try to help relive stress on the foot by changing stress coming from upper body position or habitual movement. I turn to you when the client needs help with changing foot position when it is affecting the upper body.
     
  11. villeneuve-philippe

    villeneuve-philippe Welcome New Poster

    Hi Kevin

    Thank you to share with us this important information.

    It's a confirmation about of posturology concept.

    Like a french podiatrist and osteopath, I work about nearly 30 years about posturology.
    The soul of posturology is based on cybernetic concept. We give a stimulation, by example for the podiatrists on the mechanoreceptors of the plantar skin foot (input) with thin wedges 1 to 3 mm which modulate the postural tonus (output).
    But between, the input and the output, there is the black box, and it's the first time where I can read that insoles in human altered the cortical maps. It 's for us a capital step.

    The posturology is very efficient about the treatment of chronicle fonctional pains (Chronicle low back pain by exemple). There is a lot full texts on this topic, but unfortunately in french, only few are in English.

    Sincerely

    Philippe Villeneuve
    Chairman Association Posturologie Internationale
    Professor University Barcelona (Master Posturolgy)
    Email : villeneuve-philippe@orange.fr
    Site :
    Association : www.posturologie.asso.fr
    Formation : www.connaissance-evolution-formation.com/

    PS excuse me for my wrong English
     
  12. Anthony S

    Anthony S Active Member

    A fascinating first step. But as Prof Kirby says, it raises more questions than answers. Analysing brain function introduces a whole raft of issues.

    The first question I would have is did they test it with a "sham" insole. If not the change in brain function could be caused by nothing more than the difference between an obvious test state and an obvious control state.

    I wonder what the frontal cortex would do if you put the subject on a wobble board, or put a live ferret down their trousers. If the frontal cortex is where we find concious and considered decision making, I could hypothesise that either of those states would reduce it as well!

    Interesting. Also slightly disturbing how people with frankly ludicrous models start claiming vindication through this little snippet of the beginning of a pilot of a piece of research.

    It's confirmation of nothing. It's an idea for a research tool we don't yet know how to apply.
     
  13. toomoon

    toomoon Well-Known Member

    I remember having the exact same conversation with Professor Paul Mc Crory, one of the world's leading research neurologists when we were looking at introducing an exteroceptive stimulus from a shoe. I was very keen to look at EEC but he told me there would be little value in this because the results would be so difficult to interpret.
    As for the ferret down the trousers.. well I have had that exact nasty experience and I can tell you my frontal cortex was on fire..
     
  14. Paul Bowles

    Paul Bowles Well-Known Member

    The results would only be difficult to interpret until you accounted for the variables and "normal" patterns in the brain function outside of the source stimuli. Once these were identified then the other exterioceptive (proprioceptive for Prof Rothbart) stimuli could be accounted for a measured. Not impossible....
     
  15. If nothing else, this research should make all of us start to think more about the afferent input into and the efferent output from the central nervous system (CNS) and how they may be affected by foot orthoses. Certainly, there has been little to no scientific research on the neuromotor effect of foot orthoses, those kinetic and kinematic effects caused by efferent output from the CNS as a result of altered afferent input into the CNS from foot orthosis intervention.

    An example of a neuromotor effect from a foot orthosis might be an over-inverted foot orthosis causing late midstance pronation of the foot where, normally, an inverted orthosis would cause supination of the foot. Another example of a neuromotor effect from a foot orthosis might be an orthosis with a sharp medial edge causing a pain-avoidance response that results in more subtalar joint supination than would be expected from the direct mechanical effect of foot orthoses which occur due to altering the magnitudes, temporal patterns and plantar distribution of reaction forces on the plantar foot.

    I proposed these terms over four years ago in a discussion we had on Direct Mechanical vs. Neuromotor Effects of Foot Orthoses here on Podiatry Arena.

    In addition, the psychological effects of foot orthoses is just starting to appear in the scientific literature and these psychological effects of foot orthoses are probably quite significant. I know of one paper that has shown significant positive psychological effects from foot orthosis intervention (Kusumoto A, Suzuki T, Yoshida H, Kwon J: Intervention study to improve quality of life and health problems of community-living elderly women in Japan by shoe fitting and custom-made insoles. Gerontology, 53:348-356, 2007).

    Certainly, this area of research is virtually untapped and will likely provide, in the future, even more evidence of the therapeutic effects of foot orthoses.
     
  16. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
    1
    INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF CUSTOM MADE ORTHOTICS ON BRAIN FORMS: A PILOT STUDY
    Lindsay Carey
    Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario 2013
     
Loading...

Share This Page