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.
Chronic stress triggers depression by activating a gut-immune-brain pathway. In mice exposed to chronic restraint stress, gut microbiota changes caused small intestinal γδ T cells to migrate to the brain, where they released interleukin-17A (IL-17A). This IL-17A impaired a mitochondrial cleanup process called mitophagy in the hippocampus, leading to reduced energy production, damaged synapses, and depression-like behavior. Blocking γδ T cell migration, removing a key receptor on these cells, or giving the antidepressant arketamine all restored mitophagy and improved behavior. The findings identify a specific chain from gut microbes to immune cells to brain mitochondria that drives stress-induced depression, and point to arketamine as a potential treatment targeting this pathway.
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.
Long-term meditation offsets obesity, hypertension, and reduced heart rate variability in Tibetan monks with a body mass index over 30 who had practiced meditation for an average of 19 years. Compared with matched non-meditative Tibetan controls, the monks showed a protective plasma proteome linked to decreased atherosclerosis, enhanced glycolysis, and oxygen release, along with lower levels of total cholesterol, LDL-C, apolipoprotein B, and lipoprotein(a). Blood pressure and heart rate variability were comparable between groups. The findings suggest meditation may improve cardiovascular health even in individuals with a sedentary lifestyle.