10/30/2025
Love this🙌
Such an important reminder that true rehabilitation goes beyond muscles and joints. It’s about retraining the entire system. The nervous system truly is the hidden key to restoring balanced movement. 🧠🐴
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1YxFCgD86H/?mibextid=wwXIfr
🐴🧠 Neurodynamics & Neuroplasticity in Horses
When we think equine rehabilitation, we often focus on joints, muscles and tendons. But the nervous system - and how it adapts or mal-adapts after injury - is a powerful force in movement, compensation and recovery.
Here’s what every equine rehab practitioner should understand 👇
1️⃣ Neural communication runs through more than nerves
Beyond the obvious nerves and spinal pathways lies a dynamic network of neural control: spinal reflexes, peripheral nerve mechanosensitivity, neural gliding, and central motor-pattern systems. These pathways respond to injury, loading, posture and movement. When a limb fails, the nervous system rewires. When posture shifts, neural tension often follows.
2️⃣ Neuroplasticity = the nervous system’s ability to change
In horses, injury, pain or chronic compensation triggers structural and functional changes in the nervous system. That might include altered timing of muscle activation, modified reflex thresholds, or sensitised neural tissue - meaning the “system” now runs on a new, less efficient program. Recognising these changes can explain why an apparently healed limb still under-performs.
3️⃣ Neurodynamics = how the nervous system moves with the body
Neural tissues don’t sit still. They glide with motion, respond to stretch, and adapt to posture. A tight dorsal sling, rotated pelvis, or chronic head carriage can place abnormal strain on neural pathways, limiting mobility, altering gait, and contributing to hidden dysfunction. Mobility limitations that seem musculoskeletal may actually be neurodynamic in origin.
4️⃣ Why this matters in rehab
When you see persistent gait asymmetries, subtle head nods, or rider-induced stiffness, ask: is the nervous system locked into a compensatory program?
⚡️Standard “stretch & strengthen” may fail if neural control hasn’t readjusted. You might need neural mobilisation, proprioceptive re-education, and spinal pattern retraining.
Movement becomes therapy not just for tissues, but for the nervous system - re-teaching the body how to control motion rather than simply doing motion.
✅ Takeaway
Rehabilitation isn’t only about bones, muscles or fascia. It’s also about rewiring the nervous system’s software to restore efficient, symmetrical, pain-free movement. When you think neuro-plasticity + neuro-dynamics, you step from reactive rehab into strategic movement design.
