Scientific Reports
May 15, 2025
Florence Requier, Hamed Mohammadi, Harriet Demnitz-King et al.
With aging, slight changes in some cognitive processes can be observed. Therefore, we aimed to assess if meditation expertise is associated with preserved cognition in key domains affected in aging. We used data from two older-adult samples of the Medit-Ageing Age-well Study: 135 non-meditators and 27 expert meditators. We examined group differences in four objective cognitive domains...
PLoS One
February 12, 2025
Zishan Jiwani, Simon B. Goldberg, Jack Stroud et al.
3 citations
INTRODUCTION: Meditation practice and psychedelic use have attracted increasing attention in the public sphere and scientific research. Both methods induce non-ordinary states of consciousness that may have significant therapeutic benefits. Thus, there is growing scientific interest in potential synergies between psychedelic use and meditation practice with some research suggesting that...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Jack Stroud, Charlotte Rice, Aaron Orsini et al.
8 citations
Anecdotal reports suggest that psychedelic drugs can improve psychological wellbeing and social engagement in autistic people. However, there are few contemporary studies on this topic. To examine autistic participants' experiences with psychedelic drugs and the extent to which they attributed changes in mental health and social engagement to their most 'impactful' psychedelic experience. We...
Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
2025
Perla Kaliman, María Jesús Álvarez-López, Asrar Lehodey et al.
Shorter telomeres are associated with increased risk of cognitive decline and age-related diseases. Developing interventions to promote healthy aging by preserving telomere integrity is of paramount importance. Here, we investigated the effect of an 18-month meditation intervention on telomere length (TL) measures in older people without cognitive impairment. A total of 137 adults age ≥65 years...
Scientific Reports
November 2, 2024
Marco Schlosser, Julie Gonneaud, Stefano Poletti et al.
2 citations
Understanding the factors that predict why some individuals perceive to respond more to meditation training than others could impact the development, efficacy, adherence levels, and implementation of meditation-based interventions. We investigated individual-level variables associated with self- and teacher-perceived responsiveness to longer-term meditation training. This study presents a...
BMJ Open
March 1, 2024
Charlie Song-Smith, Edward Jacobs, James Rucker et al.
9 citations
Objective To capture UK medical students’ self-reported knowledge and harm assessment of psychedelics and to explore the factors associated with support for changing the legal status of psychedelics to facilitate further clinical research. Design Cross-sectional, anonymous online survey of UK medical students using a non-random sampling method. Setting UK medical schools recognised by the...
February 13, 2024
Marco Schlosser, Stefano Poletti, Fabienne Collette et al.
preprint
Understanding the factors that predict why some individuals perceive to respond more to meditation training than others could impact the development, efficacy, adherence levels, and implementation of meditation-based interventions. We investigated individual-level variables associated with self- and teacher-perceived responsiveness to longer-term meditation training. This study presents a...
Mindfulness
April 1, 2023
Charlotta Simonsson, Richard Chambers, Peter S. Hendricks et al.
15 citations
Previous research has investigated potential synergies between classic psychedelics and meditation practice, but relatively little remains known about the relationship between classic psychedelic experiences and engagement with meditation practice.The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between classic psychedelic experiences and engagement with two popular types of...
PLoS One
2023
Marco Schlosser, Harriet Demnitz-King, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
13 citations
Older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) recruited from memory clinics have an increased risk of developing dementia and regularly experience reduced psychological well-being related to memory concerns and fear of dementia. Research on improving well-being in SCD is limited and lacks non-pharmacological approaches. We investigated whether mindfulness-based and health education...
PLoS One
2023
Marco Schlosser, Olga Klimecki, Fabienne Collette et al.
6 citations
As the world population is ageing, it is vital to understand how older adults can maintain and deepen their psychological well-being as they are confronted with the unique challenges of ageing in a complex world. Theoretical work has highlighted the promising role of intentional mental training such as meditation practice for enhancing human flourishing. However, meditation-based randomised...
October 31, 2022
Marco Schlosser, Olga Klimecki, Fabienne Collette et al.
Objectives: As the world population is ageing, it is vital to understand how older adults can maintain and deepen their psychological well-being as they are confronted with the unique challenges of ageing in a complex and vulnerable world. Theoretical work has highlighted the promising role of intentional mental training such as meditation practice for enhancing human flourishing. However,...
JAMA Neurology
October 10, 2022
Gaël Chételat, Antoine Lutz, Olga Klimecki et al.
45 citations
Importance: No lifestyle-based randomized clinical trial directly targets psychoaffective risk factors of dementia. Meditation practices recently emerged as a promising mental training exercise to foster brain health and reduce dementia risk. Objective: To investigate the effects of meditation training on brain integrity in older adults. Design, Setting, and Participants: Age-Well was a...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 16, 2022
Ada Kałużna, Marco Schlosser, Emily Gulliksen Craste et al.
41 citations
Abstract Background and aims Despite promising findings indicating the therapeutic potential of psychedelic experience across a variety of domains, the mechanisms and factors affecting its efficacy remain unclear. The present paper explores this by focusing on two psychedelic states which have been suggested as therapeutically significant in past literature: ego-dissolution and connectedness....
Neuropsychology Review
August 4, 2021
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
193 citations
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are increasingly utilized to improve mental health. Interest in the putative effects of MBPs on cognitive function is also growing. This is the first meta-analysis of objective cognitive outcomes across multiple domains from randomized MBP studies of adults. Seven databases were systematically searched to January 2020. Fifty-six unique studies (n = 2,931) were...
April 13, 2021
Marco Schlosser, Thorsten Barnhofer, Florence Requier et al.
2 citations
Objectives: Deepening our understanding of the mechanisms by which meditation practices impact well-being and human flourishing is essential for advancing the science of meditation. The phenomenologically grounded classification system introduced by Dahl, Lutz, and Davidson (2015) distinguishes attentional, constructive, and deconstructive forms of meditation based on the psychological...
Alzheimer s & Dementia
December 1, 2020
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
6 citations
Abstract Background The primary focus of mindfulness‐based program (MBP) research to date has been on mental health. More recently, attention has turned to putative effects on cognition. An evidence synthesis is required to answer the key question of ‘Do MBPs confer cognitive benefit, and if so, for whom?’ A particularly crucial distinction is whether benefits differ according to individuals’...
PLoS One
May 9, 2019
Marco Schlosser, Terje Sparby, S. Vörös et al.
So far, the large and expanding body of research on meditation has mostly focussed on the putative benefits of meditation on health and well-being. However, a growing number of reports indicate that psychologically unpleasant experiences can occur in the context of meditation practice. Very little is known about the prevalence and potential causes of these experiences. The aim of this study was...
Journal of Psychosomatic Research
2017
Bassam Khoury, Bärbel Knäuper, Marco Schlosser et al.
An increasing number of studies are investigating traditional meditation retreats. Very little, however, is known about their effectiveness. To evaluate the effectiveness of meditation retreats on improving psychological outcomes in general population. A systematic review of studies published in journals or as dissertations in PSYCINFO, PUBMED, CINAHL or Web of Science from the first available...