Dyslexia is more an auditory disorder than a visual disorder

We naturally think of dyslexia as a visual problem with reading, but the neurological root cause reveals something different — it’s actually a disorder with auditory, or hearing, processing.

Dyslexia is a learning disorder unrelated to intelligence that affects your ability to read, spell, write, and even speak.

People with dyslexia have difficulty with phonology — sounding out words and parts of words. Brain scans of people with dyslexia have shown the part of their brain responsible for phonology does not connect adequately with the left frontal lobe, the area of the brain that governs language. Research also shows disruptions in the timing of auditory processing of speech. Like a well-tuned, well-rehearsed symphony orchestra, the brain depends on good timing in the connections of its various parts to function properly.

Some research even suggests people with dyslexia have brain anatomy that predisposes them to dyslexia.

A dyslexic may spell words incorrectly but that are phonetically correct, i.e., “joos” versus “juice.” Also, even if they are highly intelligent, they may routinely struggle with the correct form of “there,” they’re,” and “their” in a written sentence.

Dyslexics may also struggle with the difference between left and right and transpose numbers easily. They do not do well with patterns and sequences.

People with dyslexia have been shown to be more right-brain dominant and show a right-brain-dominant development imbalance in childhood.

Traits of being right-brain dominant include being better able to see the bigger picture versus the details, more artistic, intuitive, and empathetic, does poorly with verbal instruction, and is more prone to multitasking.

Thanks to industrialization, brain development disorders in children have become very common these days. They are also usually accompanied by immune disorders, such as asthma, eczema, allergies, food sensitivities, and autoimmune disorders. In fact, the dyslexic child’s issues may be compounded by recurrent ear infections that damage hearing and further impact auditory processing.

Fortunately, these findings have improved rehabilitation for dyslexia by incorporating auditory learning.

Functional neurology for dyslexia

In functional neurology, we can further facilitate rehabilitation by bringing more balance between the brain’s hemispheres and improving the timing and coordination between the various regions of the brain.

For instance, childhood brain development disorders often involve skipping important milestones such as crawling; proper brain development depends on the child going through each milestone.

When the brain fails to develop appropriately, one hemisphere grows more slowly than the other, giving rise to various disorders that are either left- or right-brain dominant. As this imbalance progresses, the brain finds it increasingly difficult to network between the hemispheres, giving rise to disorders such as dyslexia.

In functional neurology, we use a variety of neurological exams to identify these imbalances. For example, stereognosis exercises on the right side of the body can stimulate the left parietal lobe and restore help balance between the left and right hemispheres. Drawing the letters and numbers dyslexics commonly confuse (d, b, p, q, 6, and 9) and working on distinguishing them can also exercise the left brain.

In functional neurology we can even spot a brain development abnormality in infancy. This can give parents a leg up in preventing or minimizing disorders before they are too severe. The earlier you can intervene, the more of an impact functional neurology rehabilitation can have.

However, if you are an adult with dyslexia, do not despair. The brain is highly malleable and responsive to rehabilitation at any age. It just needs the right input, either activating underactive areas, or dampening over active areas through a variety of exercises tailored to your neurology.

Ask my office how functional neurology can help you with dyslexia.

Women suffer from PTSD more often and more severely than men

Popular culture relates post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to male war vets, but the truth is PTSD affects about twice as many women than men, women develop more symptoms, and PTSD lasts longer in women than men.

A 2017 study showed that men are more likely to experience general traumatic life events than women in the form of accidents, natural disasters, man-made disasters, or military combat.

However, women are more likely to experience traumatic events of sexual abuse, sexual assault, childhood sex abuse, attempted rape, sexual coercion, and intimate violence. Additionally, many women experience sexual harassment and threats on a daily basis, making recovery from sexual abuse or violence difficult, and retriggering constant. According to researchers, women are also more vulnerable to “undesirable life events,” such as illness and injury.

Researchers found this applied across various cultures and that the effects were amplified in more traditional cultures where women have fewer rights and less safety.

What is especially interesting is that evidence shows this may not be linked to gender so much as gender roles. Female police officers, for example, showed less PTSD than civilian women despite being exposed to more “male” types of traumas. This can be linked to how much control a person feels they have; feeling less in control equates to higher risk of PTSD.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped collection of neurons that plays a central role in fear responses and PTSD. Although men and women seem to have similar responses in the amygdala when exposed to a negative stimulus, a woman’s negative response lasts longer, which may be another reason women are more susceptible to developing PTSD. The amygdala and other areas of the brain involved in the fear response are also more activated by anger and threats from others in women than in men.

Why are women more prone to being stressed, anxious, fearful, and at risk for PTSD? Fear and anxiety are typically more tolerated and even encouraged in females, suggest researchers. Women are more likely to inherit anxiety risk factors, too, however studies show gender roles play a role in this area as well.

Also, females are simply at more risk in terms of sexual violence. Plus, women are more likely to blame themselves than male victims, and more likely to see the world as dangerous.

Interestingly, researchers suggest an evolutionary advantage of female stress and PTSD — to protect themselves and their offspring. The commonly touted “fight-or-flight” stress response is actually more pertinent to men. Women are more apt to “tend-and-befriend” to protect themselves and their offspring through nurturing behavior and developing social networks.

It’s important to understand how PTSD affects men and women differently and why. Many people believe PTSD only affects war veterans and that women are “hysterical” or “crazy,” when, in fact, they may be suffering from PTSD from traumas that may have begun early in life and been repeatedly reinforced.

In functional neurology we work to help rehabilitate the brain to calm and rewire the stress responses in both men and women. We take into consideration metabolic factors that can exacerbate PTSD or hinder recovery, such as chronic inflammation, gut health, thyroid function, and hormone balance.

A multi-pronged approach can help unwind and re-pattern the brain’s long-engrained networks of PTSD. For more information, contact my office.

Vaccines and the brain: Understanding cross reactivity

Few things in medicine have been more contentious in the last couple of decades than the public debate over whether vaccines cause autism. The truth is, the relationship between immunity and neurology — neuroimmunology — is extremely complex and cannot be legitimately reduced to such an overly simplified argument. Instead, with even the most cursory understanding of neuroimmunology, we can ask more relevant questions that could one day increase public safety from both infectious disease and immune injury to the brain.

In a recent review article published in Cellular & Molecular Immunology, the authors analyzed studies going back several decades and argue that a neuroimmunolgical concept called cross reactivity is the true question when it comes to vaccine safety .

Cross reactivity stems from molecular mimicry. This is a well-established phenomenon in immunology in which amino acid sequences in two different proteins are identical. Amino acids are the building blocks that make up proteins, like different beads on a necklace. You can have two beaded necklaces that are very different yet both contain an identical pattern of a few beads. This is similar to molecular mimicry.

The same thing occurs with proteins. Although a virus and brain tissue are two completely different things, they can still have within them identical amino acid sequences. This exists throughout nature and is generally not a problem unless the immune system becomes dysregulated, confuses the two, and begins attacking and destroying body or brain tissue it has mistakenly identified as the virus.

Unfortunately, immune dysregulation is disturbingly common today. Rates of autoimmunity have exploded in the last couple of decades due to a variety of factors affecting primarily industrialized populations. Autoimmunity is a disorder in which an over zealous immune system attacks and destroys its own tissue.

What does this have to do with vaccines? The review demonstrated links between autoimmune cross reactivity and several vaccines. In other words, the immune system mounted an inflammatory response to a protein in the vaccine that mimicked a protein in the brain or nervous system. Once it produced antibodies to the protein, it continued the attack against neurological tissue long after the vaccine was given.

This concept does not apply just to vaccines but also to foods, viruses, bacteria, environmental chemicals, heavy metals, medications, environmental allergens, and so on. Also, cross reactivity can occur to any tissue in the body, not just the brain.

Vaccine injury studies show neuroautoimmune cross reactivity plays a role in flu vaccines and narcolepsy and Guillain-Barre syndrome; HBV vaccines and multiple sclerosis; and the HPV vaccine and lupus and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

Who becomes injured and why? Although much is yet to be learned about neuroautoimmunity, increased susceptibility has been linked to degradation and permeability of the gut lining and blood-brain barrier, chronic inflammation, and immune dysregulation. It’s believed that no one thing — a vaccine, a food, a chemical — causes autoimmunity on its own, but rather a combination of factors raise the risk for a final trigger to be the tipping point into autoimmunity. For some, that tipping point can be a vaccine (and, sadly, studies show babies can be born with neuroimmune dysregulation developed in utero from maternal and environmental influences). For others, it has been breast implants or other implants, a traumatic event, or simply a gradual loss of immune regulation.

The good news is we can screen for and address these risk factors with a functional neurology and functional medicine approach.

Also, while the vaccine war, based on uninformed assumptions and opinions, rages on, researchers who understand the complexities of neuroautoimmunity are working on vaccines that may one day circumvent or lower the risk of cross reactivity.

Ask my office how good functional neurology and functional medicine can help reduce the risk of triggering neuroautoimmunity and screen for your susceptibility.

Is your brain not working but your neurologist says you’re fine?

Is your brain not working, severely impacting your quality of life, but it’s not bad enough to warrant medical treatment? It is very distressing when you become increasingly moody, you keep losing your keys or forgetting where you parked the car, or you’re tired and always in pain. However, chances are if you see a doctor or neurologist for these issues, testing will show you’re fine. You may even be told it’s normal to feel that way.

In functional neurology we take these kinds of symptoms seriously. Everything about your life reflects your brain health. Compromised brain health can be as basic — and serious — as having lost motivation, not being able to accomplish what you want, the feeling life is flat, not wanting to go out and socialize, dealing with memory loss, fatigue, insomnia, irritability, and so on. These are all issues that affect our experience on the deepest levels while we are alive, yet aren’t going to show up on an MRI.

In functional neurology, we help take the mystery out of your suffering. Through an in-depth neurological exam and, if necessary, functional medicine lab testing, we can identify areas of the brain associated with your symptoms that aren’t working properly. Having a concrete reason for what is robbing you of your quality of life helps people feel more invested in and empowered by rehabilitation.

This differs from a conventional medical approach in which, for example, you might be given a drug such as an antidepressant. That drug will bathe the entire brain with compounds in the hope it will improve function in the affected area of the brain causing problems.

However, in functional neurology, we can identify which area of the brain has compromised function and either activate or dampen that specific area as needed.

For instance, decreased activity in the left frontal lobe (forehead area) can present as depression. Instead of bathing the entire brain an anti-depressant or even a neurotransmitter supplement, we can give the patient rehabilitation exercises to target that area of the brain specifically.

Not only will this relieve symptoms, but it will improve the overall health of the brain and likely relieve other symptoms as well. Because all areas of the brain are so highly connected with one another, when function is low in one area, the whole brain can suffer.

While conventional neurology and medicine is designed to spot diseases and pathology, it often can’t diagnose a problem unless it has advanced significantly. For instance, for multiple sclerosis to show up on an MRI, about 90 percent of the nerve sheathes have to be destroyed by autoimmune attacks, even though patients may suffer from increasingly worsening symptoms for years prior. In functional neurology, we can screen for autoimmune attacks against brain tissue with just one test.

Sometimes conventional testing simply isn’t appropriate for common brain disorders. A study looking at brain scans for migraines, for example, showed only 1 to 3 percent showed abnormalities, and most of those abnormalities were not even related to migraines. That’s because the areas of the brain that could prevent a migraine often look normal in a scan even when they’re not doing their job; they’re either dormant or not firing correctly. The same can be said for scans of patients with ADD or ADHD.

Functional neurology helps by taking unhealthy neurons and making them healthier, as well as helping various areas of the brain better synchronize with one another for a more harmonious “neurological orchestra.”

Functional neurology is also different in that we take into consideration metabolic factors. For instance, undiagnosed hypothyroidism, autoimmunity, gluten intolerance, or gut bacteria imbalances all profoundly impact brain health.

If you know your brain isn’t working but your problem isn’t severe enough to be diagnosed or treated by conventional medicine or neurology, ask my office about how functional neurology can help you.

Lots of positive touch helps babies’ brains better develop

There’s a reason we can’t stop cuddling and kissing a baby — a new study shows its essential for healthy brain development.

Thanks to a safe new brain imaging technique, researchers have been able to observe how a baby’s brain responds to not only being touched on their hand or foot, but also to seeing an adult being touched as well (although observing touch activates the brain less than experiencing it).

Both receiving and observing touch activate the somatosensory cortex, and area that runs over the top of the brain from ear to ear and is involved in touch, pressure, pain, temperature, position, movement, and vibration. Touch in different areas of the body activate different parts of the somatosensory cortex.

Activation of this area by both experiencing and observing touch is evidence that a baby can distinguish between self and other, say researchers. This is important because it is the foundation to imitating and learning from others, as well as experiencing empathy.

It’s perhaps not surprising touch is so essential to brain development. After all, it’s the first sense to develop in humans. Before they can communicate verbally, touch is a channel of communication between babies and their caregivers.

A survey study from a children’s hospital in Ohio also showed that babies who received lots of hugs, cuddling, and affection from their caregivers showed stronger brain responses than babies who were touched less often.

Functional neurology for a touch-deprived brain

Many people were born in a time when babies were left alone and untouched for long periods both at the hospital and at home. It was thought babies needed to learn how to self-soothe, cry it out, and toughen up. We now know that increases the risk for anxiety, depression, low self-worth, a lower IQ, less empathy, addiction, mental illness, and health problems.

A touch-deprived brain can be rehabilitated. This also applies to people whose touch in early life was abusive. Early childhood neglect or abuse can wire imbalances in brain development. A functional neurology exam can identify areas of the brain that are under active or over active so that a customized rehabilitation program can be designed for you.

If a safe loved one isn’t available, getting a massage or foot reflexology is one way to begin activating the brain’s touch centers. Healthy socialization can also help fill in the gaps created by lack of early healthy touch.

And just as observing touch activated the somatosensory cortex in babies, adults can also activate neglected areas of the brain by watching people touch and relate to one another in healthy, loving ways. This is also helpful for someone who may become triggered by touch and needs to ease into it by allowing the brain to create a mirroring process for its own neurology.

Ask my office for more information on functional neurology for help with mood and mental disorders that may stem from lack of or abusive touch. We also specialize in working with brain injury, memory loss, dizziness, dystonias, and other brain-based disorders.