Marco Schlosser
The Unconscious - Psychoanalysis and Free Energy
I am interested in the meeting of psychoanalytic and neuroscientific conceptions of the unconscious. Does the active inference framework and its free energy principle carry clinical implications for psychoanalytic practice?
Meditation
I am part of the European Medit-Ageing Project, which investigates the effects of meditation training on brain and mental health in older adults and includes the largest randomised trial of meditation training conducted to date. My research has also included the study of meditation-related difficulties and ways to address theoretical, methodological, and clinical issues that arise in the context of such difficulties (Schlosser et al. 2019).
Psychedelics
I have led the IMPRINT project (Integrating Meditation and Psychedelic Research Initiative). You can find more details in this abstract. A preprint of the first results has been published (Jiwani et al., 2024); more publications will follow in 2025. At University College London (UCL), I have supervised the development and publication of BSc and MSc dissertation projects on psychedelic research (e.g., Kałużna et al., 2022; Song-Smith et al., 2023). I chair a working group of early-career researchers interested in the potential synergy between psychedelic use and meditation practice.
Healthy ageing and dementia prevention
I have also been involved in experimental and cross-sectional research investigating the psychological factors that could support healthy ageing and reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia (e.g., Demnitz-King et al., 2023; Marchant et al., 2021; Schlosser et al., 2020).