An 8-month daily guided intensive meditation-based intervention (iMI) added to a general rehabilitation program reduced persistent hallucinations and delusions and improved health-related quality of life in male inpatients with treatment-refractory schizophrenia. In a randomized trial of 64 participants, those receiving iMI showed significantly greater reductions in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total scores, positive symptoms, and hallucination/delusion items at both 3 and 8 months compared with rehabilitation alone. Treatment response rates (at least 25% reduction) for these measures were higher in the iMI group at 8 months. The iMI group also reported better physical activity and mindfulness skills. Longer iMI duration produced stronger benefits.
Repeated intravenous ketamine infusions rapidly reduce anhedonia in both younger and older adults with major depressive episodes, but older patients show a weaker response. In a study of 135 patients (116 younger, 19 older) receiving six ketamine infusions over 12 days, anhedonia scores dropped significantly in both age groups within 4 hours of the first infusion, with effects maintained throughout treatment. By day 26, younger patients had lower anhedonia scores than older patients. The antianhedonic response rate was 51.7% in younger patients versus 31.6% in older patients, and remission occurred in 24.1% of younger patients but none of the older patients.
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.