An eight-month randomized clinical trial of male inpatients with schizophrenia found that daily clinician-guided meditation plus rehabilitation improved symptoms by 11.8% at 3 months and 20.8% at 8 months, and improved cognition by 7.6% at 3 months, which then plateaued. Early cognition improvement predicted but did not mediate later symptom relief. Brain imaging revealed a biphasic pattern: baseline default-mode-cerebellar complexity predicted 3-month benefit, while 3-month action-mode/sensorimotor-executive complexity predicted 8-month gains. These findings support a biphasic network reconfiguration model for meditation in schizophrenia and suggest phase-specific markers for personalized treatment.
An EEG-based positive feedback mechanism for VR mindfulness meditation improves emotion regulation more than meditation without feedback. The system computes emotional state from EEG, assesses relaxation progress, and adapts feedback in real time. In a randomized controlled trial with 36 participants, both physiological measures and self-reported relaxation increased significantly with the feedback mechanism compared to interventions without feedback. The findings suggest that personalized, adaptive feedback can enhance engagement and effectiveness in digital mental health interventions.
A proposed interaction design model for virtual reality (VR) mindfulness meditation uses imagery-based transformation and positive feedback to help users quickly soothe negative emotions. Building on traditional mindfulness meditation, the model specifies three steps: an interaction guidance process, an interaction experience context, and an interaction feedback mechanism. Two scenarios were built based on these steps. Experimental results suggest the design can effectively alleviate anxiety and provide emotional relief. The transformation model is offered as a reference for VR mindfulness meditation systems and as a new idea for non-pharmacological interventions in psychotherapy.