Women, extraordinary scientists who have contributed to understanding the complexity of human emotions.
Eight international meetings - all and everywhere free and open to the public - organized by BrainCircleItalia, in collaboration with prestigious neuroscience research centers, such as EBRI (European Brain Research Institute, Italy) ELSC (Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Israel) , Champalimaud Foundation of Lisbon, the Institute of Clinical Neuroscience of Italian Switzerland in Lugano, the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences of the University of Geneva, MEET Digital Culture Center, the international center for Digital Art and Culture born in Milan with the support of the Cariplo Foundation, the Sainsbury Welcome Center - University College of London.

EMOTIONS

The series of meetings is dedicated to the Nobel Prize Rita Levi-Montalcini, a transgenerational source of inspiration for female scientists from all over the world.
This is an innovative project conceived and organized by Viviana Kasam, President of BrainCircleItalia, who explains: “Women are often underrepresented at neuroscience conferences, despite the fact that there are extraordinary academics and researchers in the world. In order to break the glass ceiling that still stands in the way of female visibility, it seemed my duty to create an international event that focuses attention on neuroscientist women ”.

Emotional intelligence

"The choice of the EMOTIONS theme - adds the president - is intended to be a small provocation to question the stereotype that contrasts the rationality of man with the emotionality of woman". Fortunately, today the key role played by emotional intelligence in our lives is increasingly recognized as an integral part of logical thinking, not in opposition. Only thanks to emotional intelligence can the challenges of the Third Millennium be faced, and in the light of this new awareness EMOTIONS is configured as an event aimed at a vast and heterogeneous audience of men and women.
As Rita Levi-Montalcini wrote: “The future of the planet depends on the possibility of giving all women access to education and leadership. In fact, it is women who have the most difficult, but most constructive, task of inventing and managing peace ”. EMOTIONS was born thanks to the close collaboration of Viviana Kasam with Clara Caverzasio, Co-president of BrainCircleLugano, Hermona Soreq, full professor of Molecular Neurobiology at ELSC, and Daniela Perani, full professor of Neuroscience and head of the "In vivo Human Molecular and Structural Neuroimaging" unit, division of Neuroscience, Istituto Scientifico San Raffaele, who helped create a network international of female scientists of the highest level.

The EMOTIONS program

Richness and novelty of the topics covered, this is the strength of this varied program.
Each event is open free of charge to anyone interested in attending both in presence is online on the website dedicated to the initiative.

  • October 24, 2021: Jerusalem, Israel.
    Understanding emotions - We will talk about how the most common emotions arise in the brain: fear, satisfaction, empathy and stress.
  • October 31, 2021: Genoa, Italy. The maps of love in the brain - How love manifests itself in the brain and how the most beautiful of emotions can degenerate, causing suffering and obsession. This symposium is part of the “Science Festival” program to be held at the Doge's Palace.
  • November 19, 2021: Rome, Italy. Beauty and the Brain - The perception and response of the brain to beauty. Is aesthetic judgment innate or is it a cultural fact? The theme will be addressed from the point of view of visual arts, literature, music and evolution, in the prestigious headquarters of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
  • 3 December 2021: Lugano, Switzerland. What kind of emotions? - Do men and women have different emotions, or just a different way of expressing them? What are the emotions considered "feminine" that can be useful to men and vice versa? And what role do emotions play for those with differently codified gender orientations? The Forum will take place in Lugano, at the Lac, with the patronage of the Council of State of the Republic and Canton of Ticino and of the city of Lugano
  • January 25, 2022: Milan, Italy. Emotions in artificial worlds - A very topical theme, which ranges from robotics, to virtual reality, to algorithms to capture emotions online, to cyborgs, looking to a future where emotions could be synthetic.
  • February 11, 2022: Geneva, Switzerland. Emotions, cognition and behavior - From moral judgments to economic decisions, from learning to social behavior: emotions affect us even where we believe they should not intervene.
  • May 15, 2022: London, UK. Love and its emotional repercussions - From adolescence to motherhood / fatherhood, from passion to stalking, from social to narcissistic pleasure. Love is the emotion we all think we know, but at the neuroscience level it still has many questions.
  • May 21, 2022: Lisbon, Portugal. The evolution of emotions: from insects to humans and beyond - To conclude a real Brain Festival organized with the Champalimaud Foundation, in which art and science will merge into an extraordinary event, which analyzes emotions from an evolutionary point of view .

Creativity and emotion

The emotions that will be discussed in each event will be evoked by musical interludes entrusted to internationally renowned artists. The relationship between creativity and emotions is further deepened by the creations of Michael Rovner and Monica Bonvicini, famous artists all over the world, who created limited edition t-shirts exclusively for EMOTIONS.

The speakers

EMOTIONS was made possible thanks to the invaluable support of many foundations and the availability of the speaker scientists:
Pamela Agazzi, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland (Lugano), Switzerland Merav Ahissar, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Cristina Alberini, New York University, NY, USA Shir Atzil, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Michela Balconi, Cattolica University (Milan and Brescia), Italy Inbal Ben Ami, Tel Aviv University, Israel Sarah Jayne Blakemore, University of Cambridge and University College London, UK Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa), Italy Lisa Bortolotti, University of Birmingham, UK Daniela Cerqui, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Géraldine Coppin, UniDistance Suisse and University of Geneva, Switzerland Beatrice de Gelder, Maastricht University, Netherlands Catherine Dulac, Harvard University, USA Ruth Feldman, Interdisciplinary Center (Herzliya), Israel, and Yale University, USA Helen Fisher, Indiana University and Rutgers University, USA Talma Hendler, Tel Aviv University, Israel Eva Jablonka, Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv, Israel, and L ondon School of Economics, London University, UK Donatella Marazziti, University of Pisa, University UniCamillus (Rome) and University of Lucca, Italy Bianca Jones Marlin, Columbia University and Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, USA Mouna Maroun, Haifa University, Israel Angela Matthes, founder of Becurious, Lichtenstein Barbara Mazzolai, Italian Technology Institute (Pisa), Italy Marta Moita, Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal Hannah Monyer, EBRI (Rome), Italy, and University Hospital (Heidelberg), Germany Virginia Penhune, Concordia University and BRAMS International Laboratory ( Montreal), Canada Daniela Perani, San Raffaele Scientific Institute (Milan), Italy Julie Péron, University of Geneva, Switzerland Maria Victoria Sanchez Vives, IDIBAPS (Barcellona), Spain Antonella Santuccione Chadha, Womens' Brain Project (Lugano), Switzerland Sophie Schwartz , University of Geneva, Switzerland Alessandra Sciutti, Italian Technology Institute (Genoa), Italy Giorgia Silani, University of Vienna, A ustria Hermona Soreq, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Maya Tamir, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Sara Tonelli, Bruno Kessler Foundation (Trento), Italy Carien Van Reekum, University of Reading and PCLS Diversity and Inclusion Committee, UK Agnieszka Wykowska, Italian Technology Institute (Genoa), Italy.