Neuropsychology Review
August 4, 2021
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
193 citations
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) show a small but significant benefit for cognitive performance, particularly for executive function and working memory, according to a meta-analysis of 56 randomized controlled trials involving 2,931 adults. The overall effect favoring MBPs over comparators was small (g = 0.15). Benefits were strongest for non-clinical samples and adults over 60, and when MBPs were compared to inactive controls rather than active ones. No significant effects were found for other cognitive domains. Most studies had unclear risk of bias, and some statistical results were unreliable. The findings partially support the idea that mindfulness practice can enhance certain cognitive abilities.
JAMA Neurology
October 10, 2022
Gaël Chételat, Antoine Lutz, Olga Klimecki et al.
45 citations
An 18-month randomized trial of meditation training versus non-native language training or no intervention in cognitively unimpaired adults aged 65 and older found no significant changes in brain volume or perfusion of the anterior cingulate cortex or insula from meditation. Meditation did produce superior improvements in a composite score of attention regulation, socioemotional capacities, and self-knowledge compared with language training. The findings confirm the feasibility of both meditation and language training in older adults, with high adherence and low dropout, but the positive behavioral effects of meditation were not accompanied by measurable changes in the targeted brain structures.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 16, 2022
Ada Kałużna, Marco Schlosser, Emily Gulliksen Craste et al.
41 citations
Both ego-dissolution and connectedness during a psychedelic experience are associated with a higher chance of therapeutic improvement, but they affect people differently. Ego-dissolution tends to trigger psychological change that typically does not last beyond the psychedelic experience, while connectedness can be more sustained and is linked to several positive, potentially therapeutic feelings. A mixed-methods systematic review of 15 studies (2,182 participants) synthesized findings from four databases. The results suggest that emphasizing ego-dissolution during preparation and connectedness during integration may improve psychedelic therapy models, with broader implications for mental health practice.
Mindfulness
April 1, 2023
Charlotta Simonsson, Richard Chambers, Peter S Hendricks et al.
15 citations
People who have used classic psychedelics report meditating more often, specifically mindfulness meditation, but not loving-kindness or compassion meditation. Among those who had a psychedelic experience, both psychological insight and ego dissolution were linked to more frequent practice of both types of meditation. However, when both factors were considered together, only psychological insight predicted higher meditation frequency. These findings, from a survey of 2,822 U.S. adults, suggest that psychedelic experiences—especially those that produce psychological insight—may encourage regular meditation, though causality cannot be established.
PloS one
January 1, 2023
Marco Schlosser, Harriet Demnitz-King, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
13 citations
Older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) recruited from memory clinics are at higher risk for dementia and often have reduced well-being due to memory concerns and fear of dementia. A randomized trial compared an 8-week caring mindfulness-based approach for seniors (CMBAS) with a health self-management program (HSMP) in 147 participants. The mindfulness program showed a small advantage over HSMP in improving a sense of connection immediately after the intervention. However, overall psychological well-being, quality of life, and other composite measures did not increase in either group. The findings suggest that these brief non-pharmacological interventions had only limited effects on well-being in SCD.
BMJ Open
March 1, 2024
Charlie Song-Smith, Edward Jacobs, James Rucker et al.
9 citations
Most UK medical students (83%) are aware of psychedelic research and only 3% are not interested in learning more, yet only 17% feel well-educated on the topic. Students' harm assessments of psychedelics closely match experts', but teaching on psychedelics is rare in their curriculum. Time in medical school does not correlate with more knowledge about psychedelics. On average, students strongly support changing the legal status of psychedelics to enable further clinical research. Greater knowledge, lower perceived harm, more years in medical school, and lower perceived effectiveness of non-pharmacological mental health treatments are associated with stronger support for legal change.
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Jack Stroud, Charlotte Rice, Aaron Orsini et al.
8 citations
The majority of autistic participants who completed an online survey reported that their most impactful psychedelic experience reduced psychological distress (82%) and social anxiety (78%) and increased social engagement (70%). A substantial minority (20%) reported undesirable effects such as increased anxiety, with some describing the experience as among the most negatively impactful of their lives. The only substantial predictor of reduced distress was increased psychological flexibility. The findings come from a non-experimental design with biased sampling, so caution is warranted.
PloS one
January 1, 2023
Marco Schlosser, Olga M Klimecki, Fabienne Collette et al.
6 citations
An 18-month meditation training program for healthy older adults aged 65 to 84 improved a composite measure of well-being encompassing awareness, connection, and insight, compared to an active control of English language training. The meditation group also showed significant increases in psychological quality of life, awareness, insight, and the global score from the start to the end of the study. However, meditation did not outperform the active control on the Psychological Well-being Scale total score, and improvements in psychological quality of life were no longer significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. The trial, involving 137 participants, represents the longest randomized meditation training study to date.
medRxiv
August 28, 2024
Zishan Jiwani, Simon B. Goldberg, Jack Stroud et al.
3 citations
preprint
Most meditators who use psychedelics perceive them as beneficial for their meditation practice. Among 863 regular meditators (practicing at least three times weekly for the past year) who also used psychedelics, machine learning identified four factors most likely to predict this positive perception: greater frequency of psychedelic use, setting intentions before use, higher agreeableness, and having used N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The model explained about 27% of the variance. The findings suggest that intentional and personality factors may shape how psychedelics influence meditation, but causality remains unestablished.
Scientific Reports
November 2, 2024
Marco Schlosser, Julie Gonneaud, Stefano Poletti et al.
2 citations
Older adults who spent more time practicing meditation perceived greater benefits from an 18-month meditation program. The study involved 90 healthy adults aged 65-84 years who were randomly assigned to either meditation training or a non-native language training. Higher levels of formal practice were associated with higher combined ratings of self- and teacher-perceived responsiveness across measures of connection, emotions, and meta-awareness during sessions and in daily life. Global responsiveness scores were not correlated with actual changes in well-being. The findings suggest that engagement, rather than baseline characteristics like personality or expectancy, predicts perceived response to meditation training.
April 13, 2021
Marco Schlosser, Thorsten Barnhofer, Florence Requier et al.
2 citations
A theory-based classification of meditation practices—attentional, constructive, and deconstructive—can guide the creation of composite scores from existing psychological questionnaires. In three samples (meditation-naïve older adults, meditation-naïve older adults with subjective cognitive decline, and long-term meditators with at least 10,000 hours of practice), these composite scores showed adequate psychometric properties, including low floor and ceiling effects, interpretability, and convergent validity with well-being, anxiety, and depression measures. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the predicted three-factor structure. The findings suggest that theoretical models of meditation mechanisms can yield empirically meaningful composite scores for research.
PLoS One
February 12, 2025
Zishan Jiwani, Simon B. Goldberg, Jack Stroud et al.
1 citation
Most meditators who also use psychedelics report that the drugs improve their meditation practice. In a survey of 863 regular meditators who had used psychedelics, 73.5% said psychedelics positively influenced the quality of their meditation. Machine learning analysis of 53 variables identified the strongest predictors of this perceived benefit: greater frequency of psychedelic use, setting intentions before taking psychedelics, having an agreeable personality, and having used N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (N,N-DMT). The results suggest that individual traits and patterns of use shape whether psychedelics are seen as helpful for meditation, but causality cannot be established from this cross-sectional data.
Scientific reports
May 15, 2025
Florence Requier, Hamed Mohammadi, Harriet Demnitz-King et al.
Expert meditators in older age reported less external distraction and performed better on memory tasks compared to non-meditators, while no differences were found in attention, executive function, or global cognitive scores. These cross-sectional findings from 135 non-meditators and 27 expert meditators suggest that prolonged meditation practice may help preserve memory and manage distractions, two cognitive capacities important for healthy aging.
February 13, 2024
Marco Schlosser, Stefano Poletti, Fabienne Collette et al.
preprint
More time spent practicing meditation is linked to greater perceived benefits from training, according to a study of 90 healthy older adults aged 65-84 who took part in an 18-month meditation program or a language training program. Higher engagement, measured as hours of formal practice, was the only factor associated with higher ratings of responsiveness by participants and teachers, including measures of connection, emotions, and meta-awareness during sessions and in daily life. Baseline traits like sex, education, personality, and cognition did not predict responsiveness. The findings suggest that adherence and practice time are key to perceived intervention effects, and future studies should track engagement and reasons for disengagement.
October 31, 2022
Marco Schlosser, Olga Klimecki, Fabienne Collette et al.
An 18-month meditation training program, combining mindfulness with compassion and loving-kindness practice, improved a global measure of psychological well-being in healthy older adults compared to both an active English training group and a no-intervention control. The global score reflected the meditation-based dimensions of awareness, connection, and insight. Meditation training was superior to English training on changes in each of these subscales individually. However, it did not outperform the comparators on the standard Psychological Well-being Scale total score, and improvements in psychological quality of life were not significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. Participants who started with higher well-being showed smaller gains.