It's time to evolve our approach to nervous system dysregulation

As 2025 comes to a close, I've been reflecting on the models often used to work with nervous system dysregulation.

And I keep coming back to the same thing: it's time to evolve.

Many of the methods we rely on were created before the 1990s - before we understood neuroplasticity, before we could map predictive processing, before imaging technology revealed how neurons actually communicate across networks (Barrett, 2017).

These older models assumed the brain had fixed structures operating in isolation with one-way information flow.

We now know better.

Understanding Networks, Not Just Structures

People experience nervous system dysregulation following traumatic stress because of changes in neural connections, neural networks, and what I call predictive signatures - unique activation patterns across multiple brain regions that fire together to create a prediction (Feldman & Friston, 2010).

Think of a predictive signature like a recipe. Just as your grandmother's bolognese requires specific ingredients combined in a specific order to create that distinct taste (you get the onion from the pantry, the herbs from the garden, the meat from the fridge, the wine from the rack) a predictive signature requires specific brain regions activating together in a specific pattern to create an experience - whether that's anxiety, pain, or feeling safe.

Once your brain has learned a predictive signature for threat, it becomes the default recipe that creates both emotional and bodily states. This is what keeps your clients stuck - not because they can't change, but because their brain keeps following the same recipe.

This is the dark side of neuroplasticity: the exact mechanism that allows us to learn and adapt can also lock us into dysregulation through these predictive signatures.

Evolving Our Understanding

The amygdala doesn't create emotion on its own - it's the pathways connecting it throughout the entire brain that create the experience of emotion.

The insula is your interoceptive hub. It's how information flows from the body via vagus nerve to the insula, and then through the insula's pathways to the rest of the brain, that determines whether your client feels sensations that are too big (creating anxiety) or too small (creating dissociation). Brain networks are influenced by sensory information.

The hippocampus doesn't just store memory - it's how its pathways connect to other areas that determines if your client becomes triggered and feels transported back to a past event.

Physical pain emerges from networks - how sensory input travels through interoceptive pathways, how those signals are appraised across brain regions, how the insula integrates this into a prediction of "body state." The pain is real, but it's the network's prediction and interpretation, not just the sensation itself (Critchley & Garfinkel, 2017).

Think of it like a city's infrastructure. You don't just have individual roads - you have an entire network of roads, highways, and intersections connecting different parts of the city. The way these routes connect determines how traffic flows, which routes become major thoroughfares, and which paths fall into disuse.

It's the network that matters, not just individual streets. Your job is to change how the traffic flows so your client stops following the same road to panic, freeze or pain.

What This Means for Our Work

We have the opportunity to align our work with what we now know about how the brain and body function - to work with prediction processing, neuroplasticity, and interoception using both top-down and bottom-up approaches in ways that are specific to nervous system states and sensory systems.

The same neuroplasticity that created dysregulated patterns after trauma is exactly what allows us to create new pathways. But we need to work with the sophistication that contemporary neurobiology offers us.

This is the difference between temporary relief and real lasting change in a person's capacity.

Between hoping something works and understanding the mechanics of why it does.

Between working with outdated models and aligning with how the nervous system operates.

As we step into 2026, I'm inviting you to evolve with me.

To move beyond techniques borrowed from decades ago and step into frameworks that honour the complexity and elegance of the nervous system as we understand it today.

Your clients deserve this level of sophistication.

You deserve to work with tools that match your commitment to their healing.

It's time for a more sophisticated approach.

In 2026, I'll be funnelling all of my energy into the Nervous System Certification Course and our graduate community, Impact. I've retired each of my other programs, as I too evolve.

Warmly, 

Jessica