Keeping Up with EMDR, the Brain, and Neurobiology: From Brain Parts to Brain Networks 

 

Guest Blog Post by  Bridger Dale Falkenstien, PhD, LPC-S; Jen Savage, LPC-S; & Caleb Boston, LPC-S

 

If you have been in the EMDR world for a while, you have probably heard some version of this story: 

“Trauma over-activates the amygdala, shuts down the prefrontal cortex, and scrambles the hippocampus. EMDR calms the amygdala, brings the prefrontal cortex back online, and lets the hippocampus file the memory correctly.”

It is tidy, familiar, and… incomplete. 

That “brain parts” story comes from what’s called a modular view of the brain: one structure, one job. Hippocampus = memory, amygdala = fear, prefrontal cortex = thinking, and so on. The problem is not that this is totally wrong–these brain regions are involved in these processes–it’s that it doesn’t give us enough interpretive power to understand why EMDR works the way it does, or why sometimes it doesn’t.

Modern neuroscience is shifting the lens from individual parts (modular) to interacting systems (networks). Instead of asking, “What is this brain structure doing?” we’re now asking, “What pattern of networks is active, and how are they talking to each other?” This is where the work of Vinod Menon and D. Eric Chamberlin becomes incredibly helpful for EMDR therapists.

From brain parts to brain networks: Menon’s Triple Network Model

Menon’s triple network model (2011; 2015) proposes that many forms of psychopathology can be understood by looking at three large-scale brain networks and how they relate to each other:

Default Mode Network (DMN)

  • What it does: Internal mentation–autobiographical memory, sense of self, social perspective-taking, imagining the future.
  • How it feels: “What does this mean about me? Who am I? Where do I belong?”

Central Executive Network (CEN)

  • What it does: Goal-directed attention, working memory, problem-solving, engaging with the outside world.
  • How it feels: “What do I need to do right now? How do I stay on task?”

Salience Network (SN)

  • What it does: Detects what is important (or dangerous), integrates body signals and emotions, and helps switch between DMN and CEN.
  • How it feels: “Is this safe? Is this a threat? Do I need to fight, flee, freeze, or reach for help?”

Menon’s model suggests that when these networks are out of balance, we see many of the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns we call “disorders”; many of the disorders we see in the DSM or ICD have characteristic dysregulation patterns of these three networks. Different symptoms often reflect which network is over-dominant, under-recruited, or poorly coordinated rather than a single “broken part” of the brain; the more chronic and pervasive the disorder, the more disrupted the networks are in their integration.

Chamberlin’s Network Balance Model: Bringing EMDR into the picture

Chamberlin brings Menon’s triple network model into the world of EMDR and asks a very specific question:

What if PTSD is, at its core, a failure to restore balance among these three networks after acute stress…and what if EMDR works by re-balancing them?

In the Network Balance Model of Trauma and Resolution (NBMTR; Chamberlin, 2019), he proposes:

  • Under acute threat, the brain shifts toward the salience network, favoring rapid survival responses. Memory is then processed more by limbic structures (amygdala, hippocampus) with less help from the prefrontal cortex–great for survival, not great for nuanced integration.
  • When the danger is over, a healthy system rebalances DMN, CEN, and SN, and the memory continues to process into an adaptive form.
  • PTSD emerges when the brain fails to fully restore that balance, leaving traumatic memories “stuck” in dysfunctional patterns of activation and storage.

Chamberlin then walks through how the standard EMDR protocol can be understood as a stepwise way of activating and balancing these networks:

  • In EMDR phase 3, the targeting questions (image, worst part, NC, emotions, body sensations) primarily activate DMN and SN, bringing autobiographical memory and emotional/body salience online.
  • In EMDR phases 4-6, dual attention and eye movements strongly recruit the CEN, shifting attention outward and engaging task-positive systems.
  • The therapist’s job, from this perspective, is to orchestrate the activation and balance of these three networks throughout processing; adjusting eye movements, focus of attention, and pacing to support ongoing network cooperation.

Chamberlin offers a foundational principle as a profound reframe of “blocked processing:”

If the networks are balanced, the memory will process.

Instead of “We’re not doing EMDR right,” we might think: “One or more networks have dropped out of the conversation…how do we invite them back in?”

Predictive processing: What the brain is always trying to do

Chamberlin goes one step further and brings EMDR into the world of predictive processing (Chamberlin, 2019) – the idea that the brain’s main job is to predict its own next moment of experience and minimize the gap between what it expects and what actually happens (prediction error).

Key ideas from his Predictive Processing Model of EMDR:

  • Memory is the substrate of prediction. The brain uses past experience to guess what will happen next. Dysfunctionally linked traumatic memories lead to rigid, maladaptive predictions (“If I hear a loud bang, I’m about to die”).
  • The brain naturally tries to minimize prediction error, updating memories when reality proves them wrong, but only within a certain “sweet spot” of discrepancy (too little error, nothing changes; too much error, the brain treats it as a whole new event).
  • Trauma often creates a bias against exploration and evidence accumulation. The system either over-defends (hyperarousal, avoidance) or under-samples the present (numbing, dissociation), preventing the brain from gathering enough new information to update the traumatic prediction.

Chamberlin suggests that EMDR:

  • Brings the traumatic memory into an active state of re-experiencing (through assessment and recall).
  • Uses eye movements and dual attention to repeatedly challenge the bias against exploration, compelling the client to sample the benign present while the trauma is active.
  • This sensory sampling generates prediction error through EMDR’s emphasis on dual attention (“I’m remembering being in danger, but right now I’m safe in my therapist’s office”), and the brain naturally tries to minimize that error by updating and reconsolidating the memory.

In other words, Adaptive Information Processing’s (AIP) “inherent system” that moves memories toward mental health can now be understood as the brain’s built-in predictive processing machinery. Once the networks are balanced and the system feels safe enough to explore, adaptive resolution can emerge and even generalize.

A simple clinical loop: How these networks show up in the room

Here’s a working understanding that came out of recent conversations with EMDR trainees, translated into the language of DMN, SN, and CEN. You can feel this loop in almost every session:

1. Meet the Default Mode Network’s “Safe Enough”

Before we touch traumatic material, we’re already working with the DMN in EMDR phases 1 and 2:

  • We build an attuned, relational context where the client’s sense of self and story feels seen and believable enough.
  • We explore how they make meaning of their symptoms and history.
  • We are essentially saying to the DMN: “Your story makes sense here. You’re not alone with it anymore.”

Without this “safe enough” context, efforts to process trauma can easily reinforce shame or fragmentation rather than integration.

2. Recruit the Salience Network through assessment and resourcing

Next, we invite the salience network into the process in a contained, titrated way with EMDR phase 3:

  • Asking for a specific image of the event activates the DMN’s autobiographical memory system.
  • Naming “the worst part” and the negative cognition enlists the SN’s valuation and emotional tagging to identify what feels most charged or dangerous.
  • Tracking emotions, body sensations, and SUD brings interoception and emotional salience online.
  • Resourcing from EMDR phase 2 (calm place, nurturing/protective figures, present-day anchors) offers the SN new experiences of safety and regulation to draw on.

In Chamberlin’s language, these assessment questions activate DMN and SN and bring the person into a state of active re-experiencing, but now within a relationally safer frame.

3. Recruit the Central Executive Network with BLS + simple tasks

Once the traumatic material is alive but tolerable, we intentionally bring the CEN back into the conversation in EMDR phases 4-6:

  • Bilateral stimulation and simple attentional tasks (following the therapist’s BLS, counting, naming items, etc.) recruit focused, goal-directed attention in the present.
  • This creates a kind of forced redistribution of resources: the CEN is busy enough that it can’t collapse completely into the trauma, and the DMN’s trauma loop no longer dominates the whole field.
  • At the same time, the SN continues to monitor body and emotion, signaling when things are getting too hot or too numb.

Chamberlin suggests that the reprocessing phases of EMDR restore network balance by re-engaging the CEN while the DMN and SN remain active, allowing the brain to feel and think and sense the present all at once.

From a predictive processing angle, the eye movements and dual attention compel ongoing sensory sampling of the safe present, driving prediction error and encouraging the system to update the traumatic memory.

4. The therapist as network conductor

Seen this way, a lot of our moment-to-moment decisions in EMDR can be translated into network language:

  • Client goes flat and disengaged? The DMN may have dropped into numbing, and the CEN is dysregulated. We might gently activate the SN (body sensations, imagery) or re-engage the CEN (change speed/direction of BLS, add a simple task).
  • Client is flooded and overwhelmed? The SN may be over-dominant. We might dial back intensity, anchor in the present, or bring in more resourcing to help the CEN and DMN rejoin the conversation.
  • Client is looping in shame narratives? The DMN is dominating with a rigid story, closed off to disconfirming invitations and experiences. We may keep BLS going while helping the CEN and SN notice disconfirming evidence in the present and in other memories (competence, connection, survival).

In network balance terms, we’re continually asking: Which network needs support right now so that all three can participate in the processing of this memory? If the networks are balanced, the memory will process.

What this changes in everyday EMDR practice

You don’t have to become a network neuroscientist to let this shift how you practice. A few simple applications:

  • Case conceptualization: Listen for DMN, SN, and CEN themes in your client’s language. Are they stuck in self-story (DMN), hypervigilance or shutdown (SN), or chronic over-functioning or under-functioning (CEN)?
  • Preparation and resourcing: Think of resourcing not just as “calming down,” but as building flexible access to all three networks: safe self-story, tolerable body/autonomic states, and focused attention that can move between past and present.
  • When processing gets stuck: Instead of “I must need a better interweave,” you might ask: Which network has dropped out? Do I need to:
    • Re-activate DMN (return to the image, worst part, or NC)?
    • Re-activate SN (notice body, emotion, present-moment sensations)?
    • Re-engage CEN (adjust BLS, change task demands, or give the client a more active attentional task)?
  • Understanding change: As clients heal, you will see more fluid movement among these modes:
    • They can remember without being swallowed (DMN).
    • They can feel without being overwhelmed or numb (SN).
    • They can choose and stay present more flexibly (CEN).

Network neuroscience and predictive processing don’t replace AIP–they give us a richer language for what AIP has been pointing toward all along: the brain is built to heal when it can safely bring all of itself to the task.

 

Bridger Falkenstien, PhD, LPC-S

Bridger Falkenstien is an EMDRIA Approved Trainer™, Consultant, and co-owner of Beyond Healing. His work integrates EMDR, Somatic Integration and Processing (SIP), and network neuroscience to support clinicians in relational, attuned, evidence-informed trauma therapy.

Jen Savage, LPC-S

Jen Savage is an EMDRIA Approved Trainer™, Consultant, and co-owner of Beyond Healing. She specializes in relational EMDR, attachment-based healing, and intersubjective approaches to trauma therapy, helping clinicians cultivate depth, safety, and presence in their work.

Caleb Boston, LPC-S

Caleb Boston is an EMDRIA Approved Consultant™  and co-host of the Evidence-Based Therapist podcast. His work bridges clinical practice and research, supporting therapists in integrating EMDR with contemporary neuroscience, memory reconsolidation, and embodied, relational approaches to trauma healing.

 

 

References 

Boston, C. (Host), & Falkenstien, B. (Host). (n.d.). The Evidence Based Therapist [Audio podcast]. The Evidence Based Therapist. https://theevidencebasedtherapist.com/

Chamberlin, D. E. (2019). The network balance model of trauma and resolution—Level 1: Large-scale neural networks. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 13(2), 124-142. http://dx.doi.org/10.1891/1933-3196.13.2.124 

Chamberlin, D. E. (2019). The predictive processing model of EMDR. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(2267), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02267 

Menon, V. (2011). Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: A unifying triple network model. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(10), 483–506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.08.003 

Menon, V. (2015). Large-scale functional brain organization. In A. W. Toga (Ed.), Brain Mapping (pp. 449–459). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397025-1.00024-5 

Savage, J., & Falkenstien, B. (Hosts). (2025, July 3). EMDR and the brain’s networks: A conversation about modern neuroscience [Audio podcast episode]. In Notice That. https://emdr-podcast.com/emdr-and-the-brains-networks-a-conversation-about-modern-neuroscience/

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Additional Resources

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Date
January 23, 2026

Contributor(s)
Bridger Dale Falkenstien, Jen Savage, Caleb Boston

Practice & Methods
AIP, Mechanisms of Action, Neurobiology, Your EMDR Practice

Audience
EMDR Therapists

Language
English

Content Type
Blog/Blog Post

Access Type
Open Access

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