From default-mode to action-mode: biphasic network reconfiguration with meditation in schizophrenia
medRxiv November 20, 2025 Qing Wang, Lizhao Du, Jialing Sheng et al. preprint
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.