1st Academic-Scientific Week for the Sensory-Perceptual, Cognitive and Cultural Investigation of Human Olfaction

Written by:Vanessa Castello Branco Pereira

The Laboratory for the Sensory Study of Emotions and Cognition (LESEC) at USP’s Institute of Psychology invites you to take part in our 1st Academic-Scientific Week for the Sensory-Perceptual, Cognitive and Cultural Investigation of Human Olfaction. This will be a highly plural event that integrates the perspective of olfactory neuroscience with culture, from biology to art, from theoretical learning to the sensitivity of the human body.
At our event, different perspectives on the sense of smell will be brought together with the aim of providing a current, rich and diverse picture of our ability to smell.
We will be joined by leading scientists in the fields of neuroscience, linguistics and molecular biology associated with smell.
Some of the great guests who will be there are Prof. Dr. Moustafa Bensafi – director of the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, France, and PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Lyon – and Prof. Dr. Bettina Malnic – PhD in Neuroscience from Harvard Medical School, United States, and associate professor in the biochemistry department at USP’s Chemistry Institute, Prof. Dr. Plínio Barbosa from Unicamp’s Language Studies Institute. There will also be internationally renowned artists in the field of olfactory arts and culture, Josely Carvalho and Karola Braga, enriching our event with other speakers, experiences, proposals, work shows and unmissable knowledge. After all, our aim is to learn about smell through smell, interacting with it.
We’ll even have advanced neuroimaging equipment, fNIRS, so that we can see, in real time, the scanning of the neural networks when we smell different odors.

But be warned: the week is near!
The event will take place from September 20 to 22 at USP’s Innovation Center (INOVA USP), from 1pm to 5pm.
To register, fill in the form https://forms.gle/YXFfGY1aQMEhnYzm7 which you can also find in our Instagram bio: @afetosdoolfato.usp

We also invite researchers and students with work related to any area of Human Olfaction to present their poster at the exhibition and contribute to the plurality of the event.

Take the opportunity to follow our profile and recommend it to your friends, as we’ll be posting more information about the week there!
This event is part of the Franco-USP Week and would not have been possible without the support of the French Consulate, AUCANI and Givaudan.

The organizing committee and the LESEC-IPUSP team thank you for your time and look forward to seeing you there!

COMPLETE PROGRAM OF THE EVENT:

20/09 (Wednesday)
1 p.m. Registration (and setting up to get to know the space, see the panels and interactive activities)
14h30 Opening: Dr. Mirella Gualtieri
14:45 Special video documentation by Josely Carvalho
15h Lecture: Language and olfaction: odor-induced lexical-affective scales – Dr. Plinio Almeida Barbosa
15:45 Lecture: Olfactory Art: the use of smells as poetics – Ms Karola Braga
16h30 Coffee, interactive activities and poster exhibition

21/09 (Thursday)
1pm opening
1:15 p.m. Interactive experience/lecture: Brazil in smells: the elaboration of olfactory imagery by Brazilian biomes – Rita Vidal
14h Lecture: Molecular mechanisms of odorant detection – Dr. Bettina Malnic
14h45 to 15h: break
15h Masterclass The sense of smell: hidden and omnipresent – part I – Dr. Moustafa Bensafi
16h15 Coffee, interactive activities and poster exhibition

22/09 (Friday)
1pm opening
1:15 p.m. Conversation round: Ancestral sense of smell: what do Unani Tibb and Ayurveda remind us of in their practices? – Anaíse Shigue
2pm Interactive Talk: Affective-olfactory memories: the lines of each person’s olfactory fingerprints – Esp Vanessa Pereira
14h45 to 15h: break
15h Masterclass The sense of smell: hidden and omnipresent – part II – Dr Moustafa Bensafi
16h15 Closing

Venue: Inova USP (Ideation Space – 4th floor)
Address: Inova USP
Av. Prof. Lúcio Martins Rodrigues, 370
ZIP CODE: 05508-020
University City – Butantã (USP)
São Paulo – SP | Brazil
Location link: https://goo.gl/maps/FAx4Bjx1tV7brJXf6