Jonas Olofsson
PhD, Associate Professor
I am an associate professor of Psychology with an interest in research, teaching and the public dissemination of knowledge in the field of biological psychology. I received my PhD in 2008 from Umeå University. Under the supervision of professors Steven Nordin and Maria Larsson I investigated large, population-based samples of participants enrolled in the Betula study; we showed that olfactory loss in high age is associated with genetic risk of developing Alzheimers disease and that olfactory loss in this high-risk group can predict an increased five-year prospective decline. Thus, olfactory assessment can in some cases be used to predict the onset of dementia.
During graduate school I temporarily joined the laboratory of professor John Polich at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego to develop my research interest in event-related potentials (ERPs; ”brain waves”) as a method of studying perception and affect in the human brain (work supported by the American Scandinavian Foundation).
In 2009 I became docent and worked as a researcher at Stockholm University in the lab of professor Stefan Wiens on the topic of ERP responses associated with emotional memory under the influence of the tranquilizing drug oxazepam (work supported by the Stockholm Brain Institute).
I then moved to Chicago to continue my olfactory research program in the lab of professor Jay Gottfried at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine (work supported by the Swedish Research Council). Our ongoing work aim to provide neuroscientific evidence as to how the sense of smell interacts with verbal knowledge in the human brain.
Back at Stockholm University, I aim to continue my research while lecturing and supervising students at the Department of Psychology. I am currently establishing a research group which will focus on olfaction, affect and memory, and use a variety of behavioral and biological methods. If you want to work with me as a research collaborator, post-doctoral researcher, graduate or undergraduate student, please contact me through e-mail.
Prizes and awards
I was awarded the 2010 prize to young researchers in Psychology by the Swedish National Committee for Psychological Sciences (a branch of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) after receiving nominations from both Umeå and Stockholm Universities.
I received the Fulker award for 2009. The paper ”Odor identification deficit as a predictor of five-year global cognitive change: Interactive effects with age and ApoE-e4” was part of my doctoral dissertation and was selected by the journal Behavior Genetics as the most meritous paper published in the journal in 2009.
Publications
Peer-reviewed articles
Olofsson, J.K., Bowman, N., Khatibi, K., & Gottfried, J. (2012). A time-based account of odor object and valence perception. Psychological Science, in press.
Nordin, S., Andersson, L., Olofsson, J.K., McCormack, M., & Polich, J. (2011). Evaluation of auditory, visual and olfactory event-related potentials for comparing interspersed and single-stimulus paradigms. International Journal of Psychophysiology, published online July 12, 2011.
Cornell-Kärnekull, S., Jönsson, F.U., Larsson, M., & Olofsson, J.K. (2011). Affected by smells? Personality and chemical responsivity predicts odor perception. Chemical Senses, 36, 641-648.
Olofsson, J.K., Gospic, K., Petrovic, P., Ingvar, M., & Wiens, S. (2011). Effects of oxazepam on affective perception, recognition and event-related potentials. Psychopharmacology, 215, 301-309.
Wiens, S., Sand, A., & Olofsson, J.K. (2011). Nonemotional features suppress early and enhance late electrocortical responses to negative pictures. Biological Psychology, 86, 83-89.
Olofsson, J.K., Nordin, S., Wiens, S., Hedner, M., Nilsson, L-G., & Larsson, M. (2010). Odor identification impairment in elderly ApoE-e4 carriers is independent of dementia. Neurobiology of Aging, 31, 567-577.
Hedner, M., Nilsson, L-G., Olofsson, J.K., Eriksson, E., Bergman, O, Nyberg, L., & Larsson, M. (2010). Age-related olfactory decline is associated with the BDNF val66met polymorphism: Evidence from a population-based study. Frontiers of Aging Neuroscience.
Olofsson, J.K., Rönnlund, M., Nordin, S., Nilsson, L-G., Nyberg, L., & Larsson, M. (2009). Odor identification deficit as a predictor of five-year global cognitive change: Interactive effects with age and ApoE-e4. Behavior Genetics, 39, 496-503.
Larsson, M., Hedner, M., & Olofsson, J.K. (2009). Differential age and sex effects in semantic recognition of odors and words. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 41, 1049-1053.
Arshamian, A., Olofsson, J.K., Jönsson, F.U., & Larsson, M. (2008). Sniff your way to clarity: the case of olfactory imagery. Chemosensory Perception, 242-246.
Olofsson, J.K., Ericsson, E., & Nordin, S. (2008). Comparison of chemosensory, auditory, and visual event-related potential amplitudes. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 231-237.
Ericsson, E., Olofsson, J.K., Nordin, S., Rudolfsson, T., & Sandström, G. (2008). Is the P600/SPS affected by the richness of semantic content? A linguistic ERP study in Swedish. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 1-9.
Rozenkrants, B., Olofsson, J.K., & Polich, J. (2008). Affective visual event-related potentials: arousal, valence, and repetition effects. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 67, 114-123.
Brämerson, A., Millqvist, E., Ydse, B., Larsson, C., Olofsson, J.K., & Bende, M. (2008). Event-related potentials in patients with olfactory loss. Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 2, 1-6.
Olofsson, J.K., Nordin, S., Sequeira, H., & Polich, J. (2008). Affective picture processing: An integrative review of event-related potential findings. Biological Psychology, 77, 247-265.
Olofsson, J.K., & Polich, J. (2007). Affective visual event-related potentials: Arousal, repetition, and time-on-task. Biological Psychology, 75, 101-108.
Olofsson, J.K., Broman, D.A., Gilbert, P.E., Dean, P., Nordin, S., & Murphy, C. (2006). Laterality of the olfactory event-related potential response. Chemical Senses, 31, 699-704.
Olofsson, J.K., Broman, D.A., Wulff, M., Martinkauppi, M., & Nordin, S. (2005). Olfactory and chemosomatosensory function in pregnant women assessed with event-related potentials. Physiology and Behavior, 1-2, 252-257.
Nordin, S., Martinkauppi, M., Olofsson, J., Hummel, T., Millqvist, E., & Bende, M. (2005). Chemosensory perception and event-related potentials in self-reported chemical hypersensitivity. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 55, 243-255.
Olofsson, J.K., & Nordin, S. (2004). Gender differences in chemosensory perception and event-related potentials. Chemical Senses, 29, 629-637.
Nordin, S., Broman, D.A., Olofsson, J.K., & Wulff, M. (2004). A longitudinal descriptive study of self-reported abnormal smell and taste perception in pregnant women. Chemical Senses, 29, 391-402.
Larsson, M., Nilsson, L-G., Olofsson, J.K., & Nordin, S. (2004). Demographic and cognitive predictors of odor identification: Evidence from a population-based study. Chemical Senses, 29, 547-554.
Doctoral dissertation
Olofsson J.K. (2008). Odor identification in aging and dementia: Influences of cognition and the ApoE gene. Doctoral dissertation from the Department of Psychology, Umeå University. ISBN 978-91-7264-652-0
Licenciate-level dissertation
Olofsson J.K. (2005). Gender differences in olfactory function. Department of Psychology, Umeå University.
Book chapters
Aminoff, E.M., Balslev, D., Borroni, P., Bryan, R.E., Chua, E.F., Cloutier, J., Cross, E.S., Drew, T., Funk, C.M., Gil-da-Costa, R., Guerin, S.A., Hall, J.L., Jordan, K.E., Landau, A.N., Molnar-Szakacs, I., Montaser-Kouhsari, L., Olofsson, J.K., Quadflieg, S., Somerville, L.H., Sy, J.L., Uddin, LQ., Yamada, M. (2009) The landscape of cognitive neuroscience: Challenges, rewards, and new perspectives. I M.D. Gazzaniga (Red.) The Cognitive Neurosciences, fourth edition, Cambridge: MIT Press. (Co-authors contributed equally to the manuscript and are therefore listed in alphabetic order.)
Talks
Beside communication within academia, I also give lectures for wider audiences. For example, I have lectured on the association between smell loss, aging and dementia, at courses aimed to educate health care workers about current research on aging, health and nutrition.
Popular science, etc.
I am interested in how cognitive and brain sciences are communicated to a wider audience, and the cultural and political uses (and misuses) of such research. My writing for a wider audience has focused on how such research can be used to inform policy-making and inspire progressive social change.
”Bättre med fler prov”, Lärarnas tidning, 3, 2009. (On the role of tests as a means of improving learning; with Martin Ingvar.)
”Med hjärnan som sanningsvittne”, Tvärsnitt, 2, 2010. (On common misinterpretations and misapplications of neuroimaging research).
”Bidrag till en ny sociobiologi”, Fronesis, 35, 2011. (On the emerging science of evolutionary perspectives on human behavior).
”Noam Chomsky: Biologisten ibland oss”, Fronesis, 35, 2011. (On Noam Chomskys view of human nature.)
