Yoga and schizophrenia—a comprehensive assessment of neuroplasticity: Protocol for a single blind randomized controlled study of yoga in schizophrenia

INTRODUCTION: Schizophrenia is one of the most severe mental disorders with a prevalence of about 1% and a leading cause of disability among young adults. Pharmacotherapy is the mainstay in the management of schizophrenia. However, even with the best of medication, several problems like refractoriness, negative symptoms, frequent relapses, and cognitive impairments persist. METHODS: This is a randomized-controlled clinical study including patients from an urban tertiary hospital and a semi-urban community center, with a between-group, repeated-measures, longitudinal design. This study will recruit 160 patients with DSM 5 diagnosis of schizophrenia who are on stable medication for a minimum of 6 weeks; they will be randomly assigned into 2 arms viz., yoga therapy (YT), and treatment-as-usual (TAU) with 80 patients in each arm. Participants will undergo Clinical, Laboratory, and Radiological assessments at baseline and at intervals of 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months from the baseline. It is hypothesized that yoga will improve psychopathology and emotion processing, increase serum brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and plasma oxytocin levels and effect changes in cerebral activation in areas of the brain associated with schizophrenia. DISCUSSION: This study aims to measure the efficacy of a Yoga-based intervention as an adjunct in patients with schizophrenia as well as the mechanisms of these effects. Trial registration: Registered retrospectively with Clinical Trial Registry – India (CTRI) with registration number CTRI/2017/08/009219.