Every story has its beginnings and the answer to a question asked of a client by Barbara and Kevin Kunz in 1980 would lead to the Kunz’s 2023 foot reflexology research project at an fMRI laboratory at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. Theories and ideas about how reflexology effects the nervous system researched and developed during the intervening years would lead to innovations in reflexology as well as credible concepts prompting a scientist to suggest fMRI research.
What was the question and the answer?
“Jimmy, are you moving your fingers?” His answer, “No, Kevin is.”
A simple question. A simple answer. An interchange that would launch a thousand ideas. What was so special about the question and answer?
Our client Jimmy was a quadriplegic with a spinal cord injury leaving him without the ability to move or feel any part of his body below the neck. Yet, Kevin’s application of reflexology
technique to a specific part of the left foot prompted movement of the fingers of the right hand. The action was repeatable.
Forty plus years later his answer plus research and the development of a theory would lead us to research foot reflexology at an fMRI laboratory and results lead investigator scientist Dr. Stefan Posse would call “unexpected.”
Why Would This Happen? Why would the fingers move?
As we would come to discover, it was the nervous system at work, fragmented by spinal cord injury. Reflexology technique was the application of pressure, recreating the sensation experienced by a foot during a footstep.
A footstep is part of the survival mechanism of body’s fight or flight system and the ability to fight or flee. It would take a year of research to realize reflexology worked within the nervous system and its importance. The full implication of what that means is still being made known.
A Theory a Year in the Making
It would happen again and again, the movement of fingers prompted by reflexology technique applied to the opposite foot. We called it the crossover pattern.
More information would come six months later as we started working with Ann and Kris, both paraplegics following spinal cord injury. Both would show a crossover pattern with a difference. Technique applied to the feet prompted a generalized spasming of the feet and legs that after three months became organized.
… spasming was becoming organized into what the feet do during a footstep.
Kevin recognized that the spasming was becoming organized into what the feet do during a footstep. He had been studying for a year how a footstep happens, muscle by muscle and foot positioning by foot positioning.
Jimmy’s fingers moving?
Consider the action during a footstep as one leg and foot coordinate movement with the opposite hand and arm. We were seeing a footstep fragmented by spinal cord injury.
Pressure Comes into the Picture
It was a Sunday around noon a year after starting work with Jimmy. Barbara had been reading about the nervous system and information gathered from senses in a physiology textbook for physical therapists.
This tied reflexology work into the nervous system. This was how reflexology worked.
And, there it was: “Proprioceptive sensations are those that apprise the brain of the physical state of the body, including …deep pressure from the bottom of the feet.”
Barbara knew in an instant that this was IT. This tied reflexology work into the nervous system. This was how reflexology worked. It was a EUREKA moment, the thrill of a lifetime.
As we learned that day, stretch and movement are proprioceptive sensations as well. Taken together these are sensory experiences that apprise the body of information needed to make possible moving and walking.
Reflexology Technique Tied into Fight or Flight
Survival and the ability to fight or flee requires the feet to coordinate with activity such as increased breathing. Did reflexology tie into this mechanism, the activity of the autonomic nervous system?
We were to find it did. In addition to movement, each of the individuals paralyzed by spinal cord injury experienced what we called “internal body adjustment,” responses of the autonomic nervous system.
For Jimmy, with spinal cord injury in the neck (the cervicals), the activity was perspiring on one side of his head. Sweating is controlled by the autonomic nervous system.
For Ann whose spinal cord injury was between the shoulder blades (the thoracics), work on the feet would prompt growling of the intestinal tract, an intense feeling of hunger and perspiring below the level of her injury.
At times Kris would shiver uncontrollably with teeth chattering. When offered a blanket or change in room temperature she would reply, I’m not cold.
… proprioception is particularly important to set activities of the autonomic nervous system.
Another dive into the physiology textbook showed that proprioception is particularly important to set activities of the autonomic nervous system. After all, when pressure sensors in the feet send information that they are engaged in running,
Over the years other clients paralyzed following spinal cord injury would demonstrate similar response. In addition, clients paralyzed following stroke would experience abilities to move.
Forty Years of Research and Development
We developed these ideas throughout our careers building a credible body of knowledge for reflexology. Following discussions beginning in 2019 with scientist Dr. Stefan Posse, he suggested reflexology research in his field of study, fMRI.
Two years later we had raised $54,000 to privately fund Neural Pathways of Applied Reflexology. Dr. Stefan Posse had moved the project through the requirements of the university and we were at the University of Minnesota on a path begun forty plus years earlier.