A chiropractic neurologist is a licensed chiropractor who has completed additional postgraduate training in diagnosing and treating neurological conditions, all without drugs or surgery. They hold a standard Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) degree plus a minimum of 300 hours of specialized coursework in neurology, earning a board certification known as a Diplomate of the American Chiropractic Neurology Board (DACNB) or the International Board of Chiropractic Neurology (DIBCN).
The field is sometimes called “chiropractic functional neurology,” and it sits at an interesting crossroads: these practitioners use the nervous system’s ability to rewire itself (neuroplasticity) as the basis for treatment, relying on targeted sensory exercises and physical therapies rather than medication or surgical intervention.
How They Differ From Traditional Chiropractors
A traditional chiropractor typically focuses on the spine, using adjustments to address musculoskeletal pain, particularly in the back and neck. A chiropractic neurologist uses many of the same hands-on techniques but with a different goal. Rather than treating pain at the joint level, they use spinal and extremity adjustments as a way to send specific sensory input to targeted areas of the brain. The underlying idea is that proprioception, your body’s sense of its own position, is one of the brain’s primary inputs, alongside balance and vision.
This shift in focus means a chiropractic neurologist’s practice looks quite different day to day. Where a traditional chiropractor might evaluate how well your spine moves, a chiropractic neurologist is more likely to test how well your eyes track a moving object, how your pupils respond to light, or how steadily you stand with your eyes closed. The diagnostic lens is the nervous system, not the skeleton.
Training and Board Certification
Every chiropractic neurologist first completes a full Doctor of Chiropractic program, which typically takes four years of postgraduate education. After that, they pursue an additional 300 hours of postdoctoral study specifically in neurology, covering topics like brain anatomy, vestibular function, and neurological examination techniques. This training culminates in board examinations.
The two main credentials are the DACNB, issued through the American Chiropractic Neurology Board and recognized by the American Board of Chiropractic Specialties (which itself holds accreditation from the National Commission for Certifying Agencies), and the DIBCN, issued through the International Board of Chiropractic Neurology. Both certifications are generally recognized by state licensing boards, public agencies, and insurance companies as indicators of advanced competence in the discipline.
What Happens During an Exam
A chiropractic neurologist’s initial evaluation borrows heavily from the standard neurological exam used across medicine, but often goes deeper into specific functional tests. You can expect an assessment of your mental status (awareness, clarity of speech, orientation), motor function, balance, sensory responses, and reflexes. The cranial nerves, the twelve major nerves running directly from the brain, are tested individually. This includes checking your sense of smell, visual tracking, facial sensation, and the muscles controlling eye movement and chewing.
What sets these exams apart is the heavy emphasis on eye movements. Chiropractic neurologists pay close attention to saccades, the quick, darting movements your eyes make when shifting focus between two points. Because saccades involve circuits spanning the brainstem, cerebellum, and cortex, measuring their speed and accuracy provides a surprisingly detailed window into how well different brain regions are functioning. Many clinics use videonystagmography (VNG) systems that record eye movements with infrared cameras, along with saccadometry tools that can precisely quantify how your eyes behave during specific tasks.
Balance testing is another core component. This might involve computerized posturography, which measures how much you sway while standing on a platform, or simpler clinical tests like standing with feet together, standing on one foot, or walking with head turns.
Conditions They Focus On
Chiropractic neurologists primarily work with what are called “functional” neurological problems. These are conditions where the nervous system isn’t working properly, but there’s no structural damage visible on an MRI or CT scan, no tumor, no severed nerve, no dead tissue. Because there’s no destroyed tissue to repair, the thinking is that these conditions may respond to targeted sensory and motor rehabilitation.
Common reasons people see a chiropractic neurologist include dizziness and vertigo, balance disorders, post-concussion symptoms, and certain movement problems. Vestibular rehabilitation is a major part of many practices. For someone with persistent dizziness after a concussion, for example, treatment might involve carefully graded exercises designed to retrain the brainstem neurons responsible for stabilizing gaze and coordinating eye movements. One published case described a patient with brainstem damage whose neuron populations controlling eye tracking had to be individually retrained using precisely calibrated vestibular and eye movement exercises.
Some chiropractic neurologists also work with patients experiencing dysautonomia (problems with the automatic functions your nervous system controls, like heart rate and blood pressure), as well as certain types of headaches and coordination difficulties.
How Treatment Works
The core principle is neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to reorganize and strengthen its neural connections in response to repeated experience. Chiropractic neurologists design treatment plans that deliver specific types of sensory input to particular brain pathways, with the goal of strengthening underperforming circuits.
In practice, this translates to a combination of therapies that might look unfamiliar if you’re expecting a typical chiropractic visit:
- Gaze stabilization exercises: You focus on a target while slowly moving your head side to side or up and down, training the brain circuits that keep your vision steady during movement.
- Balance retraining: Progressive challenges from standing with feet together to single-leg stance, sometimes on unstable surfaces or with eyes closed.
- Walking exercises: Performed at varying speeds, with head turns, or around obstacles to challenge the brain’s coordination systems.
- Spinal adjustments: Used not just for joint mobility but to generate proprioceptive input aimed at specific brain regions. Different areas of the spine connect to different parts of the nervous system. Adjustments to the upper neck tend to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (lowering heart rate and blood pressure), while adjustments to the mid-back and lower spine stimulate the sympathetic system.
- Targeted sensory stimulation: This can include light touch, temperature changes, vibration, or visual stimuli, all chosen based on which neural pathways need activation.
None of these treatments involve medication or surgery, which are outside a chiropractor’s scope of practice regardless of their specialty training. The focus is entirely on harnessing the body’s existing capacity to adapt and heal through carefully dosed sensory and motor challenges.
Important Distinctions From Medical Neurologists
A chiropractic neurologist is not the same as a medical neurologist (an MD or DO who specializes in neurology). Medical neurologists complete four years of medical school followed by a four-year neurology residency, and they can prescribe medications, order advanced imaging, and perform or refer for surgical procedures. Their training totals roughly 12 years beyond college.
A chiropractic neurologist’s total postdoctoral training in neurology is 300 hours on top of their chiropractic degree. This is a meaningful distinction. For conditions that require medication management, such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson’s disease, or for situations where structural brain pathology needs to be ruled out, a medical neurologist is the appropriate provider. Chiropractic neurologists are better understood as rehabilitation-focused practitioners who specialize in functional nervous system problems amenable to non-pharmaceutical, non-surgical approaches.
Some patients see both types of providers. A medical neurologist might diagnose a condition and manage it pharmacologically, while a chiropractic neurologist provides complementary rehabilitation exercises targeting specific deficits in balance, eye movement, or coordination.