7 papers in the library · 88 citations · publishing 2020-2026
General Psychiatry July 13, 2020 Hui Shen, Meijuan Chen, Donghong Cui 43 citations
Meditation alters brain structure and function and influences epigenetic and telomere regulation, providing biological mechanisms that support its use as an alternative therapy for mental disorders, particularly major depressive disorder and substance-related and addictive disorders.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) March 21, 2020 Haiteng Jiang, Bin He, Xiaoli Guo et al. 40 citations
Meditation alters how the brain represents signals from the heart, particularly within the default mode network (DMN), and reorganizes large-scale brain networks. In a large group of long-term Tibetan Buddhist monks, meditation produced distinct, transient changes in the brain's response to heartbeats in the DMN and reconfigurations of EEG gamma and theta band networks. Theta-band connectivity between temporal and frontal regions decreased with more meditation experience, and gamma oscillations became directionally coupled to theta oscillations during meditation. These findings suggest that changes in the neural representation of cardiac activity and large-scale network integration underlie meditation's effects, implying that meditation induces both immediate and lasting plasticity in brain organization.
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences April 1, 2024 Ting Xue, Jialing Sheng, Hui Gao et al. 5 citations
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.
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience May 19, 2026 Mi Yang, Yuzheng Ma, Jialong Huang et al.
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.
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.
Frontiers in Psychiatry January 1, 2025 Di Kong, Shoukang Zou, Yanqing Huang et al.
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.
Cerebral Cortex July 1, 2024 Yupeng Han, Lizhao Du, Qiyun Huang et al.
Long-term meditation experience produces detectable neurophysiological changes in brain activity, possibly enhancing functional segregation and specialization. Electroencephalogram data from 20 long-term meditators and 20 nonmeditators during cognitive tasks and a relaxed state showed that meditators had higher classification accuracy and calculation efficiency. During a calculation task, both the power and global phase synchronism of gamma response decreased in meditators compared to their relaxation state, while no such change occurred in nonmeditators. These findings suggest meditation improves brain flexibility through neural plastic mechanisms.