Can meditation change the brain in schizophrenia?

People living with schizophrenia often experience long-term symptoms that affect thinking, perception and daily functioning. While medication remains necessary, many people continue to experience difficulties despite treatment. This led researchers to investigate whether additional approaches might help alongside standard care.

A new randomized controlled trial published in European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience provides some of the strongest evidence yet that meditation can play a supportive role in this context. The study, led by Yang and colleagues and published on May 19, 2026, examined the effects of a structured meditation program in people with chronic schizophrenia.

What did the researchers do?

Participants with long–upright schizophrenia was randomly assigned to either meditation–based on the intervention or in a comparison condition. The meditation program was structured and delivered alongside usual clinical care, rather than replacing medication or other treatments.

The researchers assessed changes in clinical symptoms and also used brain imaging to examine gray matter volume. This allowed them to examine not only how people felt and functioned, but also whether there were any measurable changes in the brain.

What did they find?

Subjects participating in the meditation program showed significant reductions in clinical symptoms compared to the control group. Importantly, these improvements were accompanied by detectable changes in gray matter volume.

This combination of clinical and neurobiological findings is what makes the study stand out. While meditation has previously been investigated in mental health, this trial provides unusually strong evidence linking a psychological intervention to measurable brain changes in a population with severe mental illness.

The authors are careful to emphasize that meditation should be considered as a complementary therapy. Medication and clinical support remain at the heart of schizophrenia care. However, the findings suggest that structured meditation could provide additional benefits when carefully integrated into existing treatment plans.

Why does this matter?

For people with chronic schizophrenia, treatment options may be limited, particularly when symptoms persist despite medication. Research like this helps broaden the debate about supporting evidence–based care can look like.

From a research perspective, the study also challenges assumptions that the adult brain in severe mental illness is stable or unresponsive to–pharmacological interventions. Demonstration of changes in gray matter adds weight to the idea that psychological and behavioral approaches can have substantial biological effects.

As with all individual studies, further research will be needed to replicate and extend these findings and understand who is most likely to benefit. But this trial represents an important step toward more comprehensive approaches to mental health care.