RESEARCH ARTICLES

Acupressure Effects on Brain Function by Dr Charles T Krebs

Extracts from the linked article.

“Acupuncture or acupressure therapy consists of either stimulating or dispersing the flow of energy, called Ch’i by the Chinese, by activation of specific acupoints on the surface of the body. The acupoints have been shown to have a unique histological microstructure and have been accurately mapped using electrical detection because they have been found to be ‘null’ points or points of least electrical resistance on the surface of the body. This electrical mapping is very highly correlated with Chinese maps of these same points. The Chinese propose that Ch’i energy is a dynamic force in constant flux that circulates throughout the body but that follows specific pathways and specific rules, and directly affects various specific physiological functions…

…Digit Span, a standard measure of auditory short-term memory is highly dependent upon integrated hippocampal function. When people demonstrate deficit Digit Span, “stress” is found in the hippocampus and other memory areas of the brain via acupressure formatting and kinesiology. Once these “stresses” are resolved by various acupressure techniques, people’s auditory short-term memories reproducibly improve to normal or in some cases to better than normal as measured on standard psychological testing. This is in spite of the fact that millions of Digit Span tests performed by psychologists have shown that Digit Span does not improve spontaneously, and basically is stable over your lifetime…

…While the mechanism of how these multi-acupoint-mode combinations activate or access specific subcortical and cortical structures and functions remains unknown, recent scientific evidence of highly specific activation of cortical and subcortical structures by specific acupoint stimulation discussed above provide at least a plausible mechanism for acupressure formatting.”

LEAP®: The Learning Enhancement Acupressure Program:
Correcting Learning and Memory Problems with Acupressure and Kinesiology. By Dr Charles T Krebs

Abstract:

“The Learning Enhancement Acupressure Program, or LEAP®, has been developed since 1985 in conjunction with clinical psychologists, speech pathologists, neurologists and other health professionals, as a very effective program for the correction of most learning difficulties. LEAP® is based on a new model of learning integrating recent concepts in neurophysiology of the brain and uses highly specific acupressure formatting to address stress within specific brain structures. The application of specific non-invasive acupressure and other energetic techniques can then resolve these stresses resulting in a return to normal function.

In the LEAP® model of learning Gestalt and Logic functions are not simply localised in the right or left cerebral hemisphere as in the popular Right Brain/Left Brain model of learning. But rather, each type of conscious brain function or process appears to have a cerebral “lead” function that is either predominantly Gestalt (Visuo-spatial, Global) or Logic (Linear, Sequential) in nature. These cortical “lead” functions provide a “point of entry” into a widely distributed system comprising many subconscious cortical sub-modules in both hemispheres and many subconscious subcortical modules throughout the limbic system and brainstem.

While the Gestalt and Logic “lead” functions are conscious, these functions are dependent upon many levels of subconscious sensory processing at many levels within the nervous system. While this processing through multiplexing and parallel processing at many different levels is highly efficient, it means that brain processing is “time bound”. Since many components of any mental function are performed in many different parts of the brain, and often at different speeds, coherent output in the form of “thinking” requires integration and synchronisation of all of these separate
processes.

Loss of integrated brain function, termed loss of Brain Integration in LEAP®, thus results in the loss of a specific mental capacity, the ability to perform a specific type of mental task. When these specific mental capacities are required for academic performance, their loss can result in Specific Learning Disabilities.

Specific Learning Disabilities (SLDs) arise in this model by either lack of access to specific subconscious processing modules, either cortical or subcortical, or the de-synchronisation of neural flows in the integrative pathways linking processing modules. Thus to resolve SLDs, you need only “open up” access to the “blocked” processing modules or re-synchronise the timing of information flow between them to re-instate integrated brain function.
The LEAP® program provides an integrated acupressure protocol using direct muscle biofeedback (kinesiology) as a tool to identify “stress” within specific brain nuclei and areas that have “blocked” integrated function. The application of the LEAP® acupressure protocol using acupressure and other energetic based techniques to re-synchronise brain function resolves learning and memory problems in a high percent of cases…

Summary: The LEAP Acupressure Program offers an Effective Long-term Solution to Addressing the Correction of Specific Learning Disabilities for most Children and Adults.
From the data presented above as well as thousands of successful clinical outcomes both in my own practice and feedback from LEAP Practitioners around the world (LEAP is now taught in 10 countries), it would appear that the LEAP program provides one possible solution to resolving Specific Learning Disabilities on a long-term basis. In the Israeli study, the children were treated with the LEAP program, but not re-tested for on average of six months following treatment.
Improvements that have persisted for six (6) months can be considered permanent, because LEAP corrects the basic Brain Integration problems underlying the symptoms of learning and memory dysfunction, rather than attempting to treat the symptom. On the strength of the data above, it would appear that a trial of the LEAP Program is warranted in the Victorian Schools.”

LEAP for the Assessment and Correction of Specific Learning Difficulties by Susan McCrossin

“In the last few decades, scientific research has continued to develop insights into understanding the complex functions and capabilities of the human brain that amaze and astound us, while reminding us of just how little in fact we know. Concurrently, kinesiology, or muscle testing, has developed at a similar rate since it was first developed by a Boston orthopaedic surgeon, RW Lovett, in 1932. Our own research and clinical experience since 1988 has evolved to an understanding of brain function that has just recently been supported by scientific research. The techniques we have developed are now available in a protocol we call LEAP, the Learning Enhancement Advanced Programme. This approach can be very effectively applied to specific learning difficulties in children and adults with consistent success, where  previously medication was the most common intervention with very limited success.

LEAP helps all kinds of learning difficulties for children as well as adults such as: attention deficit disorder (ADD) both with and without hyperactivity, sensory integration, dyslexia, poor co-ordination, closed head traumas, brain injuries, autism and nervous breakdowns. It enhances learning abilities and improves reading, reading comprehension, spelling and co-ordination…

Currently, the possible causes of learning disorders are believed to be primarily the result of five major factors:

1. structural damage;
2. brain dysfunction;
3. abnormal cerebral lateralisation;
4. maturational lag; and
5. environment deprivation. While none of these theories is unequivocally supported by current data, all of these factors may contribute to learning disabilities…”

LEAP® : The Neurological Basis of Assessing and Correcting Learning and Memory Problems with Acupressure and Kinesiology. By Dr Charles T Krebs

Extracts from the research paper:

“• Maintaining integration along all integrative pathways and within all integrative centres produces optimum function, a state called Brain Integration in LEAP.
• Loss of integrated brain function is the principal cause of dysfunction in both mental and physical performance, called Loss of Brain Integration in LEAP.
• The primary mechanism causing Loss of Brain Integration is de-synchronisation and loss of timing of neural flows along integrative pathways and within integrative centres by inhibition or excitation of these pathways and centres by neural flows originating from brainstem and limbic survival related emotions.
• On-going Loss of Brain Integration is often generated by early childhood trauma that creates long-term disruption of Brain Integration as a mechanism of coping. …

When Brain Integration is lost via disruption of the most efficient neural pathways and/or centres, either by organic damage or by functional inhibition of cortical or subcortical functions due to outputs from survival centres, specific conscious functions dependent upon this integration is also disrupted. The loss of overt conscious function is, however, often far less than the degree of interference with underlying functions might suggest because the brain will automatically compensate for these disrupted flows by using other areas of the brain, both conscious and subconscious to produce the most efficient processing possible…

In Summary:
The LEAP® treatment protocol permits the identification of the causal factors underlying the de-synchronization of neural flows within the brain, including the early childhood traumas, using kinesiology. Then the application of acupressure and other energetic techniques to resynchronises these neural flows produces integrated brain function.
The person is then challenged to perform the function that was poorly integrated before treatment, e.g. reading, spelling or maths. If integration is lost again, as evidenced by muscle monitoring, the treatment protocol is repeated, re-synchronising and integrating the brain in the context of this specific function. Once the brain functions are fully integrated, and integrated function can be maintained under the stress of performing a previously stressful function, e.g. reading, there is a corresponding cessation or reduction of the original learning or memory problems with a concomitant normalisation of these functions.”

The Learning Enhancement Advanced Program

This is a link to a PDF article created in 1989 by Developed by Melbourne Applied Physiology
Charles T. Krebs, PhD & Susan McCrossin, B.App.Sc

Note: LEAP was re-branded to “Learning Enhancement Acupressure Program” after this articles was written.