Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, 2002/10, 5(2):65-72. doi: 10.1016/S1443-8461(02)80004-1, type of study: ,art,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Full text    (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1443846102800041)

Keywords:

article [2635]
endocrine system [10]
immune system [53]
nervous system [249]
OMT [3924]
osteopathic manipulative treatment [3945]
psychoneuroimmunology [4]

Abstract:

An understanding of the known interactions between the immune network and the other integrative networks, the nervous and the endocrine, may explain changes in immune function arising from osteopathic treatment directed elsewhere in the body. The nervous, the endocrine and the immune systems are functionally connected in an intimate and complex fashion that is important in health and disease. This paper surveys the relevant psychoneuroimmunology studies, distinguishing between those based on linear interactions (the majority) and those grounded in network biology (the minority). In doing so, the appropriateness of the network biology paradigm to the osteopathic approach is established. Consequently, osteopathic treatment (structural manipulation) can be characterised as generating perturbation of the sub-network associated with those structures. Compensation by that sub-network then has the potential to perturb other sub-networks, leading to overall network compensation for the initial perturbation of the osteopathic treatment.