Mark Anthony opened this conversation by noting that the founder of the chiropractic profession described chiropractic as being founded on "tone" — that "life is the expression of tone." His guest, Dr. Scott Little, spent the rest of the episode unpacking a very specific, very modern extension of that idea: a hand-held instrument of his own design, which he calls "the interface," that he uses during a chiropractic exam to monitor his own nervous system rather than to scan the patient directly.
Dr. Little is the developer of the Light Force adjusting method for humans and animals — techniques he describes as extremely gentle and specific, with minimal or no twisting, cracking, or popping. He also frames chiropractic less as a one-time fix for pain and more as ongoing, periodic wellness care, with patients typically checked and adjusted one to four times a month once an initial complaint has settled down. Against that backdrop, he walked Mark through the history and mechanics of the interface: a device loosely based on the work of a chiropractic pioneer named Dr. Toftness, whose original instrument was permanently banned by the FDA in the mid-1980s.
Key Takeaways
- The "interface" is a simple hand-held rubbing-plate device — with a small reservoir for talc — that Dr. Little uses to monitor his own skin's sweat-gland response, not a device that scans or reads the patient directly.
- It's a deliberate redesign of the "Toftness Radiation Detector," a more elaborate lensed instrument developed decades earlier by Dr. Toftness and taught for years at Logan College of Chiropractic, where Dr. Little first learned to use it as a student in 1994.
- The FDA issued a permanent ban on the original Toftness device in the mid-1980s over how it was labeled and explained as a "radiation detector," not — in Dr. Little's account — the underlying rubbing-plate method itself.
- Dr. Little compares the tool to a stethoscope or a heart-rate monitor: it doesn't diagnose or treat, he says — it simply helps him monitor his own physiology while he applies his chiropractic training to locate and correct vertebral subluxation.
- He says the method is especially useful with patients who can't participate in feedback-based techniques like muscle testing — newborns, young children, and animals — because it doesn't require a verbal or physical response from the patient.
The Device Behind the Name: What "The Interface" Actually Is
Physically, the interface is unassuming: a rubbing plate mounted on a base with a handle and a small storage area for talc. Dr. Little dries his fingers with the talc, much like a bowler or pool player would, and rubs the plate while mentally running through a checklist of yes-or-no questions about a patient's spine — is it the atlas, the axis, the sacrum; is it right or left; anterior or posterior. A "squeak" on the plate, caused by a subtle increase in moisture from sweat-gland activity, signals a positive finding; smoothness signals a negative one.
The underlying principle, he explained, is skin conductance — the same physiological response a polygraph measures. Fingertips carry roughly 300 sweat glands each, all wired to the sympathetic nervous system, so they respond to stress or negativity with a measurable, if subtle, change. Dr. Little pointed out that this isn't a new idea: he referenced author Dr. Bradley Nelson's description, in The Emotion Code, of ancient Asian healers rubbing thumb against index finger to read that same sympathetic response. The device, he said, is simply a convenient way to season and monitor that built-in reflex — "you're the device," he tells the doctors he trains, not the instrument in their hand.
"It does nothing. It doesn't find anything. It doesn't measure anything. It is my simple skin conductance monitor that I use during my chiropractic analysis to bring me confirmation that what I think needs to take place."
— Dr. Scott LittleDr. Toftness's Legacy — and Why the FDA Banned His Original Device
Dr. Little traced the idea back to Dr. Toftness, a chiropractic pioneer he places alongside better-known names like B.J. Palmer, Clarence Gonstead, and J. Clay Thompson. Where those practitioners are remembered for adjusting technique, Dr. Toftness is remembered for a piece of technology — a handle-and-cone instrument containing lenses, amplifiers, and apertures that he patented and taught for roughly 50 years. His theory, per Dr. Little, was that a vertebral subluxation produced a faint "radiation" off the patient's nervous system that the device could amplify and translate into a change in the plate's texture. The instrument was deeply embedded at Logan College of Chiropractic, where Dr. Little studied — his college president, vice president, and much of the older faculty had trained under Dr. Toftness or actively researched his technique.
In the mid-1980s, the FDA issued a permanent ban on what it formally called the "Toftness radiation detector," along with any "device that works on the same or a similar principle." Dr. Little's read on the case, informed by conversations within the profession, is that the ban turned on labeling and explanation rather than the physical act of using a rubbing plate: the agency's own attorney reportedly told a colleague, off the record, that the problem was calling it a "radiation detector" without being able to identify the radiation. Dr. Toftness's nephew, Dr. David Toftness, was later permitted to teach a redesigned version of the device — Dr. Little became his first student in nine years in 1994 — before a subsequent FDA reviewer reasserted that the original ban was meant to be permanent.
That history is why Dr. Little is careful about how he describes his own instrument. He isn't claiming to detect anything coming off the patient, he said — he's monitoring subtle, well-documented changes in his own sympathetic nervous system while he performs a chiropractic evaluation, a distinction he compares to a clinician using a stethoscope or a runner using a heart-rate monitor.
How Dr. Little Uses It With Patients — and What He Says It Isn't
In practice, a visit starts with a consultation and, for patients old enough, a muscle strength test that gives Dr. Little information about the upper cervical spine. From there, most of the exam involves the interface: he scans while silently working through his own checklist of segment-level questions, using the plate's feedback the way another practitioner might use muscle testing or leg-length analysis. At the end of the visit he runs a post-check — a strong muscle test and no further response on the plate — to confirm the indicators he's tracking are clear.
He was direct about the limits of what he's claiming. The device, he said, doesn't diagnose or treat anything, and he considers it inappropriate for any chiropractor to use a tool like this — or muscle testing, or leg-length analysis — to render a medical diagnosis such as naming a specific disease. His stated professional objective, which he repeats to every patient regardless of species or age, is exclusively to locate, analyze, and facilitate the correction of vertebral subluxation. He said the approach works with anyone, but that it particularly shines with newborns, pediatric patients, and animals — populations where feedback-dependent methods like muscle testing are harder to apply, since the patient can't verbally confirm or push against resistance.
Who This Conversation Is For
This episode is aimed at chiropractors curious about analysis methods beyond the adjustment itself, and at patients — particularly parents of young children or owners bringing animals in for chiropractic care — who want to understand what a practitioner is actually doing when they reach for an unfamiliar hand-held tool. Dr. Little was candid that the history here is genuinely contested, and he laid out his own explanation for why he believes his redesigned approach sits on solid ground.
