Tai Chi, brain activity and psychological outcomes: a systematic scoping review

ObjectivesTo identify and map studies examining Tai Chi in relation to at least one measure of brain activity or brain function and at least one psychological outcome; to characterize the populations, Tai Chi exposure features, neural modalities, and psychological domains represented; and to summarize whether included studies reported temporal or statistical links between neural and psychological findings.MethodsPubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection were searched without date restrictions. Eligible studies reported original human data on Tai Chi and included at least one functional or neurophysiological brain outcome and at least one psychological or closely related cognitive-emotional outcome. Records were screened, full texts assessed, data extracted, and design-specific critical appraisal conducted. Findings were synthesized descriptively using evidence tables, narrative synthesis, and an evidence gap map.ResultsOf 838 records identified, 460 unique records were screened after deduplication, 25 full texts were assessed, and 22 studies were included. The evidence base comprised randomized, non-randomized, and cross-sectional comparative studies. Older adults and university students were the most frequent populations, although several clinical groups were also represented. Electroencephalography and event-related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy were the principal neural modalities. Across modalities, the most consistent pattern was the co-occurrence of favorable psychological or cognitive-emotional findings with Tai Chi-related neural change, although only a subset of studies formally tested eligible brain-behavior associations. In an added association-direction synthesis, statistically significant favorable associations were most evident in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of depression, fatigue, and emotion-related outcomes. Favorable associations were also observed in electroencephalography/event-related-potential studies of anxiety and cognitive-emotional outcomes, and in one functional near-infrared spectroscopy study of emotional memory. However, many studies reported parallel neural and psychological findings without a direct eligible association test.ConclusionThis literature is growing but remains methodologically heterogeneous and unevenly distributed. It identifies important evidence clusters and gaps, but does not yet support specific mechanisms that support conclusions regarding effectiveness. The findings support cautious consideration of Tai Chi as a low-intensity adjunctive mind, body practice for psychological and cognitive-emotional outcomes, while indicating that neural measures should currently be used to improve trial design and hypotheses rather than to guide routine clinical decision-making.Systematic review registrationhttps://osf.io/fup6c/overview, Open Science Framework (ID: osf.io/fup6c; Date: 17-04-2026).