Key Highlights:

In this final session of his six-part series, Dr. Alejandro Elorriaga brings together over three decades of practice to show how the neurofunctional approach can be applied to real-world pain and movement disorders. This video is aimed at healthcare practitioners who are ready to move beyond structural, image-based explanations of pain and work with a multidimensional, systems-level model.

Dr. Elorriaga revisits the key concepts introduced in earlier parts—force management, biotensegrity, neuromapping, and the neurofunctional operating system—and demonstrates how they guide target selection, treatment planning, and clinical decision-making in neurofunctional electroacupuncture and manual therapy.

You will learn how force management and biotensegrity allow the body to dissipate gravitational and reaction forces through elastic tissues (muscle, fascia, bone, connective tissue), and why suboptimal adaptations in these tissues are central to many chronic pain presentations. Rather than treating pain as a local structural lesion, he frames it as the expression of multidimensional neuromechanical, metabolic, and behavioral dysfunctions.

 A major focus of this session is clinical neuromapping. Dr. Elorriaga shows how to integrate:

• Segmental diagnosis (spinal segments, dermatomes, myotomes, sclerotomes)
• Palpation of peripheral nerve pathways for sensitization and plasma extravasation
• Movement analysis across the kinetic chain, including distant regions (e.g., ankle findings in hip pathology)
• Tensional behavior of soft tissues and neuromotor inhibition of deep stabilizers

He reviews key neuroanatomical principles that are directly relevant to target selection: the difference between spinal segments and spinal nerves, why T10–L2 is “high-value real estate” for reflexogenic modulation, and how understanding dermatomes and cutaneous nerve exits (e.g., C4 via supraclavicular nerves at Erb’s point / SI16) allows for more precise and powerful interventions.

The session also clarifies the clinical meaning of afferent and efferent fiber types (Aα, Aβ, Aδ, C), their conduction velocities, and the practical implications for pain, proprioception, and motor control. Dr. Elorriaga contrasts nociceptive (spinothalamic) and proprioceptive (dorsal column) pathways, explaining how their different decussation patterns influence the sensory findings seen in spinal cord injuries and complex pain presentations.

 Dr. Elorriaga challenges common diagnostic habits and language. Many everyday labels (e.g., “bursitis,” “epicondylitis,” “osteoarthritis”) are shown to be inaccurate in most chronic cases, which are better understood as degenerative, neuromechanical, or neuropathic rather than inflammatory. He argues that precision in terminology is not academic nitpicking but a reflection of underlying clinical reasoning.

From a treatment standpoint, he emphasizes the principle: “Remove before you add.” The first task is to identify and clear roadblocks that prevent the system from self-regulating—such as persistent pathological input from an old ligament injury or ongoing neuromotor inhibition. Acupuncture needles, electrostimulation, and manual techniques are used strategically to normalize sympathetic activity, improve perfusion, reduce noise in the system, and restore the conditions for adaptive change. Often, once interference is removed, the body is able to reorganize and heal with minimal further input.

Mastery in this field does not come from memorizing point recipes or quick tricks, but from sustained, deliberate practice: seeking feedback, studying neuroanatomy and biomechanics, revisiting complex material, and collaborating in interdisciplinary teams. Pain management is presented as a team sport, where no single practitioner can hold all necessary knowledge, and where the patient’s outcome—not the practitioner’s ego—is the central priority.

If you are new to this series, you are encouraged to watch Parts 1–5 first to build the full conceptual foundation before applying the integrated model presented here.