In our new SCI-LAB study, published in Neuropsychologia, Georgios Menelaou found that age-related smell changes are associated with changes in parts of the hippocampus brain region – supporting the notion that smell is a window into the aging brain: https://www.sciencedirect.com
Marta Zakrzewska defended har PhD thesis Olfaction and Prejudice: The role of body odor disgust sensitivity and disease avoidance in understanding social attitudes today with flying colors!
Her aim was to investigate the connection between olfaction, odor disgust, and social attitudes from the perspective of disease avoidance.
You can find the thesis here.
On Thursday, June 2, Marta Zakrzewska nailed her PhD thesis to the wall of the Psychology department; a long-standing tradition that symbolizes that the thesis is finalized and publicly available. Martas public defense is planned for August 25 at Stockholm University. Information about the defense seminar, and the thesis, can be found here: https://www.su.se/department-of-psychology/calendar/dissertation-olfaction-and-prejudice-1.614672
During the pandemic, Jonas and Teodor participated in a large-scale collaboration to study how to communicate effectively about ”social distancing”. This paper, which includes data from 89 countries and over 25k participants, is now published in PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111091119
This spring, we had the pleasure of hosting Maria Laura Gidari and Sharon Cannataro, students at the University of Catanzaro in Italy, who visited us via the Erasmus program. Maria Laura and Sharon learned about and participated in smell testing in the SCI-Lab. Good luck with your future studies and arrivederci!
The Ambassador for Japan in Sweden, Noke Masaki, visited Stockholm University, and was given a tour of the olfactory laboratory and the other sensory laboratories at the Psychology Department.
We welcome our new lab members, Malina Szychowska (postdoc), Mikaela Pal and Martin Sundgren (research assistants). More information about our new members can be found on the ”People” page.
Two of our talented research assistants, Sandra Challma and Georgios Menelaou, is moving on to new research jobs after spending the last two years in the SCI-lab. Thank you for your contributions to the team!
The work on the Interplay between gray and white matter neurodegeneration in Subjetive cognitive decline, published by our Postdoc Nira Cedres last year, has been highlighted during the Subjective Cognitive Decline Professional Interest Area (PIA) Year in Review 2021 seminar from the Alzheimer’s Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment (ISTAART). Follow the link below to view the seminar: https://training.alz.org/
This week we had a visit from Dr Qian Janice Wang!
We got to show her the interactive projects we are working on and she demonstrated some of hers. Turns out we are working on some very similar things!
She also presented her work on multisensory perception, with interesting parallels with her expertise in wine tasting.