Recent Neuroscience Studies Suggest the Brain Predicts Trauma

A newer study suggests trauma may not be stored in the body tissues like a hidden object. Recent neuroscience studies suggest the brain predicts trauma. Instead, the brain may continue to predict danger based on past experience, causing the body to react as though the threat is still present.

This neuroscience and trauma story on Medium explores predictive coding, frozen inference and metastability, and how these ideas add a new layer to Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score. These new neuroscience studies explain why the nervous system remains trapped in old patterns. It further suggests how healing can update these predictions. It’s important to understand that the new findings do not dismiss embodied trauma or the strength of Bessel van der Kolk’s work.

The new findings advance existing information on trauma and are primarily opinion, but exciting developments in further research are currently being undertaken to develop these hypotheses. The view of trauma residing in the body is still extremely relevant. The recent neuroscience studies are opinions. But they are also advancements on the original findings that the body keeps the score. Further information needs to be proven, however. In this trauma flashbacks and PTSD story on Medium, I explained why trauma flashbacks and PTSD are not weaknesses. They are crucial pieces of information relayed by the body, which might otherwise go undetected.

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