At PX Docs, we utilize a Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care model called Neuro-Tonal. This unique approach to adjusting and clinical care emphasizes the precise recalibration and reorganization of your child’s nervous system.
Since chiropractic care began in 1895, it has focused on optimizing the nervous system and enhancing brain-body communication through the neurospinal system. Over time, various specialties and techniques have emerged within chiropractic. What sets our PX Docs Neuro-Tonal approach apart is its integration of multiple effective techniques specifically designed to transform pediatric nervous system function, rather than being limited to a single technique, as is common among most chiropractors.
Let’s unpack exactly what this means and how it works – going deep into the neuroscience behind this work, yet keeping it simple and easy to understand at the same time.
Understanding Neuro-Tonal Chiropractic Care
Neural tone refers to the baseline tension or readiness within the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which controls all involuntary body functions, from digestion and immune response to stress management and sleep. Our work also directly focuses on and impacts the Central Nervous System (CNS), which acts as the body’s master control center, coordinating everything from movement and digestion to emotional regulation and immune response.
Neuro-Tonal Chiropractic Care directly improves both ANS and CNS function by correcting subluxation, which reduces harmful stress signals, boosts clear neurological communication, and restores autonomic balance, allowing the body and brain to function optimally.
A balanced nervous system maintains a delicate equilibrium between sympathetic tone—the “gas pedal” or stress response—and parasympathetic tone, driven significantly by the vagus nerve, acting as the calming “brake pedal.”
When a child’s nervous system experiences chronic stress, trauma, or subluxation, the sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant, like a gas pedal stuck to the floor. This imbalance, known scientifically as dysautonomia, profoundly affects health, behavior, and development.
Identifying and Correcting Subluxations
Our approach begins by identifying areas of the NeuroSpinal System that are subluxated—regions or segments where misalignment and restricted motion (dyskinesia) create abnormal sensory input (dysafferentation). Through advanced technologies like Thermal Scans, Surface EMG, and HRV (Heart Rate Variability), combined with meticulous analysis of posture, gait + coordination, movement patterns, and palpation, our PX Docs are able to identify subluxation and nervous system dysfunction with the highest levels of specificity and detail.
When subluxations occur, they flood the brain with noisy, distressing signals (nociception). The brain interprets this as a constant threat, elevating sympathetic tone and causing stress, anxiety, poor digestion, impaired immunity, and developmental delays.
Additional Stages or Layers of Subluxation + Nervous System Dysfunction
In addition to causing the initial response of dysautonomia and elevated sympathetic tone, over time, subluxation further wreaks havoc on overall nervous system development for a child by causing what we like to term neurological “confusion” or dysregulation. This disruption of normal nervous system function, especially within the Neuro-Motor or sensory-motor system, throws developmental milestones off track and can lead to gross motor, fine motor, and other developmental delays.
Finally, when a child has been stuck in this “Perfect Storm” of disrupted and altered nervous system function for years on end, they often end up in what we term as “Stage 3” of subluxation – full-on neurological exhaustion and depletion. This is when even the sympathetic nervous system and “gas pedal” burn out, and now the child’s health and well-being are severely impacted, setting the stage for more serious challenges and chronic illness to set in.
Our PX Docs and Neuro-Tonal clinical protocols are the only chiropractic techniques and adjusting styles that take all three (3) layers of subluxation and nervous system dysfunction into account, knowing that if a child or patient begins care in a fully neurologically exhausted state, we must first “recharge” the nervous system before looking to recalibrate, reorganize, and rebalance.
While this may sound simple and straightforward, the differences in how these more chronically dysregulated and exhausted patients need to be cared for is significant. Patients whose subluxation has progressed into Stage 2 + Stage 3 of subluxation need higher frequency care plans starting out, and specific adjusting protocols as well.
Neuroscience of the Chiropractic Adjustment
A Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Adjustment involves delivering a specific, gentle stimulus to a targeted area of the NeuroSpinal System. For the sympathetic dominant, wound-up, tense subluxation patterns – the adjustment is likely to be extra soft touch, sustained contact, and light force tonal in nature. Conversely, if the patient’s nervous system is in a more asymmetrical, dysregulated, and exhaustive state – the adjustment may need to be more of a quick, gentle input known as a high-velocity, low-amplitude or HVLA adjustment.
This action floods the nervous system with a rapid burst of sensory input (proprioception + mechanoreception), effectively overriding and resetting the problematic, dysregulated neural signals.
Here’s how it unfolds neurologically:
1. Proprioceptive Reset:
The adjustment triggers a powerful activation of mechanoreceptors—special sensory nerve endings in neurospinal joints and surrounding tissues—sending high-frequency signals to the brain’s cerebellum and vestibular centers. Research demonstrates this sudden sensory influx acts as a “master reset,” recalibrating how the brain interprets body position and motor control.
2. Sensory Noise and Stress Reduction:
Simultaneously, this rapid mechanoreceptive surge activates inhibitory nerve fibers (A-beta fibers) in the spinal cord’s dorsal horn. This activation helps diminish sensory noise and stress signals (nociception) and reduces chronic sympathetic dominance.
3. Enhanced Brain Regulation:
Functional MRI studies have demonstrated that chiropractic adjustments significantly enhance prefrontal cortex activation. This region of the brain is responsible for emotional regulation, decision-making, and autonomic control, effectively “quieting down” the body’s stress response.
Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Autonomic Balance
Central to Neuro-Tonal adjustments is their impact on the vagus nerve, the primary parasympathetic pathway. Post-adjustment HRV scans typically reveal significant improvements, demonstrating increased vagal tone and decreased sympathetic stress. Clinically, these shifts manifest as improved digestion, better sleep patterns, calmer behavior, and enhanced emotional resilience.
Restoring Sensorimotor Communication
Beyond autonomic balance, Neuro-Tonal Adjustments profoundly influence Neuro-Motor control and sensorimotor communication. After adjustments:
- Cortical Maps Update: Studies show the brain sharpens its internal “GPS,” refining how muscles and joints communicate and coordinate.
- Feed-Forward Loops Improve: Kids exhibit improved balance, coordination, and smoother movements.
- Efficiency Increases: Muscle activity normalizes, shown by lower, balanced EMG readings, reducing energy waste and fatigue.
While most parents today have been told that their children’s chronic health issues are likely just genetic and bad luck (traditional medicine’s theory), or due to a disrupted microbiome and altered brain-gut connections (functional medicine’s theory), deeper discovery into the neuroscience reveals that the most important component of brain function and development is Neuro-Motor and sensorimotor input via these neuromuscular feedback and communication loops.
When subluxation and nervous system dysfunction interferes with this input and sensorimotor efficiency, tone, and coordination – all sorts of downstream neurophysiological effects set in. This is made especially worse in the pediatric population where motor or movement milestones matter massively to brain development, health, and overall function.
Translating Neuroscience for Parents
Imagine your child’s nervous system as your laptop’s operation system when you’ve got way too many applications and tabs open at the same time. When overloaded with too many signals (sympathetic stress), everything slows down or stops working efficiently. The chiropractic adjustment is akin to a precise laptop reset and update — clearing signal interference and restoring communication clarity between the brain and body.
Results You Can See and Feel
We don’t guess—we measure. Our Neuro-Tonal analysis and adjusting approach includes very precise measurements of dysfunction prior to the adjustment and correction, and then are followed up by “post checks” of those same elements – often allowing parents to see literal immediate improvements in nervous system tone and function through things like calming, regulating, posture, symmetry, gait, motor coordination, and so forth.
Additionally, our PX Docs Clinical Process relies heavily on tracking continued restoration and reorganization of nervous system function through continued Progress + Comparative INSiGHT Scans. These Thermal, EMG, and HRV scans allow you to visually see and measure improvements in your child’s nervous system function via what we term the “Neuro-Metrics” associated with Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care and Neuro-Tonal adjustments!
Many parents notice tangible changes immediately: improved sleep, better digestion, stronger immune responses, smoother transitions, fewer tantrums, and increased emotional stability.
Concluding the Neuro-Tonal Adjustment
At its core, the Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Adjustment restores balance, reduces stress, and reboots the brain-body connection, allowing your child’s innate healing and developmental capacities to flourish!
By utilizing cutting-edge neuroscience, our 5-step analysis, objective scanning technology, and gentle chiropractic adjustments, we unlock your child’s full potential. Neuro-Tonal chiropractic isn’t merely a standard chiropractic adjustment; it’s a complete nervous system reset, guiding your child back on the path toward optimal health, thriving, and neurological balance!
