Feeding a general interest in life and the mechanisms supporting it, I started my academic formation with a Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Hamburg, centered around molecular and microbiology. For my Master's I switched gears, organisms and approaches by acquiring a degree in integrative and cognitive systems Neuroscience from Philipps-University Marburg. My thesis research took place abroad at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich, investigating resting-state brain mechanisms following psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. Starting in 2022, I am a PhD candidate at Leiden University focusing on the cognitive and neural mechanisms of psilocybin in healthy volunteers.

More information about Xaver Funk

Feeding a general interest in life and the mechanisms supporting it, I started my academic formation with a Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Hamburg, centered around molecular and microbiology. For my Master's I switched gears, organisms and approaches by acquiring a degree in integrative and cognitive systems Neuroscience from Philipps-University Marburg. My thesis research took place abroad at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich, investigating resting-state brain mechanisms following psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. Starting in 2022, I am a PhD candidate at Leiden University focusing on the cognitive and neural mechanisms of psilocybin in healthy volunteers.

Research

My research interests are generally motivated by the pursuit of understanding the brain, perception, cognition and consciousness on all levels of analysis and across disciplines. I maintain that it is only by integrating frameworks, approaches and insights from all the different disciplines contributing to neuroscience that one has a chance of fully appreciating and acknowledging the brain's processes and their complexity.
   
My research therefore considers topics and approaches that require cross-disciplinary considerations. Specifically, serotonergic psychedelics offer such an avenue, for being neurochemically active substances that acutely alter cell electrophysiology, neural computations, perception, as well as higher-order cognition in profound ways.
   
In my PhD project, I focus on the effects of psilocybin, a selective serotonin agonist, on resting-state brain mechanisms and perceptual processing in healthy volunteers, as measured with fMRI.