2026 has been a year for new research being released addressing trauma and how the body “stores” it. I’m not sure the last time we had so many new studies coming out like this.  You may have picked up on that if you are on therapy tock at all.   A landmark paper recently published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience by Kotler, Mannino, Fox, and Friston (2026) titled “The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability” has definitely sparked some thoughts and in my opinion has added valuable nuance information and intentionality to the language we are using as therapists and somatic practitioners. 

The Body Doesn’t Keep the Score: Updating Our Language for 2026

What does this new research say?  In a nut shell it is shifting language, updating mechanisms, and doing all with some good research to back it.  It is not dismissing the experience of trauma at all. 

Here is my summary of it

1. The 2026 Shift: From Physical “Storage” to Biological “Prediction”

The most significant shift is moving away from the idea that trauma is a physical substance “stored” in muscles or fascia.

• The New View: The brain is a prediction engine.
• The Mechanism: Trauma causes the brain to become “over-weighted” in its predictions of danger. Instead of storing a memory in your shoulder, your brain is constantly sending “threat” signals to your shoulder because it predicts you are still in a dangerous environment.
• The “Score”: The “score” isn’t a static record; it is a broken feedback loop where the nervous system is stuck in a cycle of predicting threat, feeling bodily arousal, and then using that arousal as proof that the threat is still there.

2. What is Metastability? (And why your nervous system needs it)

Researchers are now using the term Metastability to describe a healthy nervous system.

What does that word mean?  Don’t worry I had to google it too “ It allows distinct brain regions to coordinate globally for complex tasks while retaining enough autonomy to perform specialized, local functions” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3997258/

• A healthy system is flexible. It can rev up and active when needed and then quickly down regulate  to rest without getting stuck or not being able to downshift when needed.
• Trauma research now defines PTSD not as “stored energy,” but as a loss of metastability. The system becomes rigid and brittle, losing the ability to transition between states of alertness and rest.

3. The Nervous System is the Brain

The research emphasizes that the “body” and “brain” are not separate. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is effectively the “lower brain” extending throughout your torso.

• When we say “the body feels tight,” what we are actually describing is the output of the brainstem and the vagus nerve.
• This nuance is vital because it moves healing away from “releasing” something physical and toward “re-training” the nervous system’s predictive patterns.

4. Why Somatic Therapies Still Work

This new research supports many of Van der Kolk’s original suggestions (like yoga, EMDR, and movement) but for a different reason:

• Old Theory: These practices “release” trapped trauma.
• New Research: These practices provide “safety inputs” that help the brain recalibrate its predictions. By moving your body in a safe environment, you are providing the brain with the data it needs to realize that the danger has passed, effectively “resetting” the predictive loop.

Previous Related Posts

Benefits of Trauma Informed Yoga

Brainspotting

Trauma Informed Yoga

Somatic Integration

The Summary in Plain English:

Healing isn’t about “releasing” a hidden memory from your fascia. It’s about teaching your nervous system and by extension, your brain that the current environment is safe. This is why “bottom-up” approaches (like yoga, breathwork, and EMDR) work. They use the body to send “safety signals” back to the brain to recalibrate the alarm system. 

However, we should be careful not to treat the body as a separate entity that holds secrets from the brain. The body keeps the score because the nervous system is constantly writing the tally. When we understand that the “score” is actually a set of biological predictions, we gain the power to change the narrative. 

Sources

Kotler, S., Mannino, M., Fox, G., & Friston, K. (2026). The body does not keep the score: Trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 20, Article 1812957. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2026.1812957 

Psychology Today. (2026, May). The body doesn’t keep the score? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-hope-circuit/202605/the-body-doesnt-keep-the-score 
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.