What Changes in the Brain During Feldenkrais?
The post Feldenkrais Changes The Brain brought in some fascinating questions—the kind that don’t come with simple answers.
One of the most interesting was:
“What’s changing in the brain and nervous system during Feldenkrais sessions?”
Let’s dig in.
First, a Disclaimer (Even Moshe Gave Them)
There’s no large-scale, direct research on Feldenkrais and changes in the nervous system. Not yet.
And when that research does arrive, I can guarantee you—it will come with plenty of arguments and conflicting interpretations. That’s just the nature of science.Even Moshe Feldenkrais gave disclaimers. In The Elusive Obvious, he wrote before one explanation:
“This is only an illustration of the principle and not a description of an exact process.”
So let’s follow his lead.
A Reasonable Hypothesis
Here’s what I believe we can say with some confidence:
There are likely changes happening in the motor cortex—the part of the brain where voluntary movement is initiated.And more specifically, in something called the motor homunculus. That’s a kind of internal body map inside the motor cortex. (There’s actually more than one homunculus, but that’s a story for another day.)
When you move slowly, with attention—especially in non-habitual ways like in Feldenkrais—you are potentially refining and even redrawing parts of that internal map.The more you use a part of your body with awareness, the more detailed and differentiated that part of the map can become.
But What About Hard Science?
This isn’t something that’s been directly measured in Feldenkrais-specific studies. So it’s a hypothesis—an informed one—but still a hypothesis.Modern neuroscience tends to focus on how different parts of the brain communicate and coordinate during movement and learning. For example:
- How the cortex (a newer part of the brain) interacts with older parts like the cerebellum and brainstem.
- How synapses, neurons, and networks fire and wire together over time.
And guess what? Neuroscientists argue about this stuff all the time.There’s still debate about the extent of adult neuroplasticity, how movement and attention influence the brain, and what exactly is happening during different forms of learning.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
With more questions than answers.
But that’s okay.
We don’t need to fully understand what’s happening in the brain to benefit from Feldenkrais. The changes are experiential, not theoretical.
You can feel them in how you move. How you breathe. How you rest.
The science will catch up eventually.
In the meantime, we get to keep exploring—curiously, gently, and with awareness.
Thanks for reading.
