Meditation therapy can slow the loss of gray matter volume in the brains of people with chronic schizophrenia. In an eight-month trial with 58 male inpatients, those who practiced meditation showed less brain tissue shrinkage than those receiving conventional treatment alone. Greater preservation of gray matter in the right thalamus was linked to larger reductions in positive, negative, and total symptom scores on the PANSS scale. Similar links were found for the right insula and supplementary motor area. The results suggest meditation may help alleviate clinical symptoms in schizophrenia by protecting brain structure.
In chronic schizophrenia patients, eight months of meditation combined with antipsychotic medication improved overall psychiatric symptoms (PANSS scores) and restored abnormal dynamic functional connectivity between insula subregions (left dorsal anterior insula and left posterior insula) and the right orbital part of the inferior frontal gyrus, compared to baseline. At baseline, patients showed significantly lower global functional connectivity in several brain regions than healthy controls. However, cognitive function (RBANS scores) did not significantly change. The findings suggest meditation can enhance neural circuit function in schizophrenia, supporting its clinical use.