The basis of tapping has been shown by MRI scan to activate the hippocampus region of the brain - basically trauma and strong emotions are held in the amygdala, a primitive part of the brain, and in order to start allowing the trauma to be processed in the higher areas of the brain other processing areas of the brain need to come into play.
MRI is a useless scan for neuro-imaging for psychological effect, hence neuro-science utilises FMRI and PET. The new kid on the block is MEG, which is making claims of being able to detect PTSD 97% accurately. No empirical validity to this yet... but promise.
If you mean FMRI, then the scans would be considered valid, as FMRI maps neural activity. MRI... not even close, as it doesn't have the capacity for neuro-imaging efficacy when related to psychological trauma. Not even FMRI come close to MEG... PET and MEG will be the future of neurological imaging for mental health, due to the detail they can both obtain.
The hippocampus and Amygdala are also old news for PTSD, and old theories, which PET and FMRI have disproved, currently leaving theories of PTSD, symptoms and trauma in the pre-frontal cortex. Hippocampus and amygdala are part of the processing, but current neuro-science continues to shift away from these old theories... still, nobody has a clear reconciliation to date on the exact aspect of the brain with trauma and PTSD.
All current neuro-imaging research with tapping, eye movements, etc etc... all currently not validated with any empirical validity, hence the issues that EMDR has been downgraded to an exposure therapy, not what Shapiro cited her theories of it to be, as tapping, eye movements, sounds, etc, all failed empirical validation to date that they pose any real purpose other than a distraction, being a placebo.
What has been found is that the cognitive therapy technique behind such distractions is what causes the brain to activate specific regions, not the distraction itself. Remove the cognitive discussions behind the distraction, which has been done, and suddenly the distraction method activates nothing in the brain at all.
What you cite is factually incorrect to date... as the distraction to date is still unvalidated. EMDR is an approved Tier 1 trauma therapy, empirically validated to activate all the right regions of the brain for trauma processing, specifically the pre-frontal cortex, which it achieved the exact same results when the eye movements, tapping, sounds, etc, were removed, hence it got downgraded to an exposure therapy treatment as is another CBT option nowadays.
Tapping does nothing in the brain... its the cognitive discussion behind the tapping that decides whether a region of the brain is activated or not.
This is why EFT, NLP, and the long list of therapies, all failed validity when tested through neuro-science.
Placebo is a real and valid treatment that is proven to work in a minority of cases. If it works, then its valid... but facts and empirical validity are very different things to a minority that function under the placebo effect.
Read the wiki pages on this site about some of these therapies, which have empirical validation attached or cited in the references already. This is all 2010 / 2011 data... based over 5 - 10 accumulation to define validation or not.
