Craniosacral therapy: the effects of cranial manipulation on intracranial pressure and cranial bone movement
Three pages on PainSci cite Downey 2006: 1. The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks 2. Does Craniosacral Therapy Work? 3. Does Massage Increase Circulation?
PainSci commentary on Downey 2006: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
This is a study of the effect of craniosacral therapy on rabbit skulls and their cerebrospinal fluid circulation. The researchers found that “low loads of force, similar to those used clinically when performing a craniosacral frontal lift technique, resulted in no significant changes in coronal suture movement or intracranial pressure in rabbits.”
If you can’t move rabbit skull bones or change their intracranial pressure, it’s safe to assume that you probably can’t do it to humans either — and without that mechanism in good working order, craniosacral therapy has no basis at all. The researchers concluded: “These results suggest that a different biological basis for craniosacral therapy should be explored.” But, of course, a “different biological basis” for craniosacral therapy has never even been suggested, let alone tested.
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
STUDY DESIGN: Quasi-experimental design.
OBJECTIVES: To determine if physical manipulation of the cranial vault sutures will result in changes of the intracranial pressure (ICP) along with movement at the coronal suture.
BACKGROUND: Craniosacral therapy is used to treat conditions ranging from headache pain to developmental disabilities. However, the biological premise for this technique has been theorized but not substantiated in the literature.
METHODS: Thirteen adult New Zealand white rabbits (oryctolagus cuniculus) were anesthetized and microplates were attached on either side of the coronal suture. Epidural ICP measurements were made using a NeuroMonitor transducer. Distractive loads of 5, 10, 15, and 20 g (simulating a craniosacral frontal lift technique) were applied sequentially across the coronal suture. Baseline and distraction radiographs and ICP were obtained. One animal underwent additional distractive loads between 100 and 10,000 g. Plate separation was measured using a digital caliper from the radiographs. Two-way analysis of variance was used to assess significant differences in ICP and suture movement.
RESULTS: No significant differences were noted between baseline and distraction suture separation (F = 0.045; P>.05) and between baseline and distraction ICP (F = 0.279; P>.05) at any load. In the single animal that underwent additional distractive forces, movement across the coronal suture was not seen until the 500-g force, which produced 0.30 mm of separation but no corresponding ICP changes.
CONCLUSION: Low loads of force, similar to those used clinically when performing a craniosacral frontal lift technique, resulted in no significant changes in coronal suture movement or ICP in rabbits. These results suggest that a different biological basis for craniosacral therapy should be explored.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.
- Recovery trajectories in common musculoskeletal complaints by diagnosis contra prognostic phenotypes. Aasdahl 2021 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.
- Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms. Moore 2023 J Pain.
- Moderators of the effect of therapeutic exercise for knee and hip osteoarthritis: a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis. Holden 2023 The Lancet Rheumatology.