Breanne E. Kearney

Breanne Kearney, PhD, OT Reg. (Ont.) is an occupational therapist and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at Western University, Canada, working with Dr. Ruth Lanius. Her work bridges neuroscience and clinical practice to deepen understanding of how trauma affects the brain and body, with the aim of informing more effective, brain-guided treatments. Breanne’s research uses functional MRI to investigate how brain network communication is disrupted in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how these patterns can be restored through mind–body therapies such as Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR). Before her PhD at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, she spent a decade working with children with sensory processing challenges, guided by advanced training with Dr. Lisa Porter and Dr. Lucy Miller at the STAR Center in Denver, Colorado. She is co-author of Sensory Pathways to Healing from Trauma: Harnessing the Brain’s Capacity for Change and is passionate about body-based, relationship-focused approaches to healing.