Student Presenter(s): Taylor Castro, Anoushka Guha, Abeer Naeem, and Nicole Companion
Faculty Mentor: Sheldon Yao
School/College: Osteopathic Medicine, Old Westbury

Introduction: Viscerosomatic reflexes occur when organs are irritated and cause a somatic finding in the posterior aspect of the spine from T1-L3. Uterine viscerosomatic reflex levels are located from L1-L3. Somatic dysfunctions are diagnosed by finding tenderness, asymmetry, restricted motion, and tissue texture changes (TART) findings in patients. Osteopathic physicians utilize diagnoses of viscerosomatic reflexes to help diagnose and treat patients. Muscle stiffness has been found to be varied at different points during the menstrual cycle via shear-wave elastography; however, there are limited studies on muscle stiffness changes throughout the menstrual cycle measured via dynamic tissue response changes. Results: Subjects were found to have tissue texture changes at L1 and L3 levels, correlating with the uterus. All subjects had somatic dysfunction indicating asymmetry during menses. Data from the MyotonPRO was recorded from 7 healthy female subjects, with 168 data points. The means at each session were recorded and analyzed using Paired Samples Correlations with SPSS Statistical software. A positive correlation between session and stiffness was found between Session 2 and Session 7 (0.773) with a two-sided p value of 0.041. This correlates with our hypothesis that an increase in stiffness correlates with viscerosomatic reflex changes.