All Fingers And Thumbs

We’ve all seen a traditional anatomical skeleton right? But, have you ever seen a skeleton if the size of the area was determined by the amount of information it provides to the brain? Sounds confusing, I know.

Different areas of the body provide the nervous system or brain with different quantities of information. For example, our hands provide more information than our elbows. They need to, that's common sense. We use our hands for complex tasks that require precision and dexterity and therefore require more information to and from the brain in order to complete said tasks. 

Now imagine this, because our hands provide more information to our brains compared to our elbows. On our new skeleton our hands would be massive compared to our elbows. More information they provide the bigger the size. 

So, our hands are one area. What 3 other areas do you think would be the largest on our new skeleton?

For those of you who said, Feet, Faces, and Genitalia you are right. 10 points to Hufflepuff. 

Logically that makes sense right?

We use our hands to complete most tasks, that's why we have these amazing thumbs. 

Being bipedal, meaning standing on two legs, our feet are the only connection with the earth and therefore need to know about slopes, angles, lumps, bumps and alike.

Our faces are eyes, ears, a nose and a mouth on them, 4 areas that provide the brain with 4 major senses. Which is how we are able to determine what is in our surroundings.

And lastly our genitals, for reasons that should only be explained by your parents. If you need any help here please refer to the “birds and the bees chat”. 

All of the above is referred to as the somatosensory homunculus. Try saying that 10x fast. 

This refers to the areas of the body that provide the nervous system with the most amount of information. 

This provides us, as clinicians at Peak, with a valuable answer when our clients ask why we keep pulling their toes and fingers. 

In short,they allow us as clinicians the ability to heavily influence specific hemispheres or sides of the brain quickly and efficiently. 

As stated earlier, their hands and feet provide the largest amount of information to the brain, so it makes sense that if we are going to influence the brain, adjust the areas that have the largest impact on it. 

Alongside that, the distribution so to speak of that information is very important. When we adjust a finger or toe 100% of the information travels to its corresponding side of the brain. Compared to when we adjust one side of the spine the information is split 60:40 bias to the side of the adjustment. 

Therefore if we want to specifically influence the left hemisphere, we will see greater change adjusting the corresponding foot or hand compared to a spinal segment.