Do adjacent joints compensate for decreased mobility in a cervical spine segment?

The data from a combined pathological and kinesiological investigation in autopsy specimens of the cervical spine were used to test whether adjacent motion segments compensate for loss of mobility at a given level. In the segments adjacent to a low-mobile one no evidence was found of compensatory hypermobility, of an increase in the number and size of disk splits (which might have enhanced mobility), or of increased variation in mobility. On the contrary, a positive correlation of decreased mobility was present between the segments and their neighbors. Degenerative lesions affecting several levels of the same spine were probably a main cause of this correlation, but it was in part apparently independent of these lesions (at least as recorded in our study).