Antonio Damasio is currently the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, as well as Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology, at the University of Southern California, and, additionally, an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute.
15 Facts About Antonio Damasio
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Antonio Damasio was previously the chair of neurology at the University of Iowa for 20 years.
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Antonio Damasio formulated the somatic marker hypothesis, a theory about how emotions and their biological underpinnings are involved in decision-making.
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Antonio Damasio has been named by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the most highly cited researchers in the past decade.
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Antonio Damasio recovered William James' perspective on feelings as a read-out of body states, but expanded it with an "as-if-body-loop" device which allows for the substrate of feelings to be simulated rather than actual.
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Antonio Damasio demonstrated that while the insular cortex plays a major role in feelings, it is not necessary for feelings to occur, suggesting that brain stem structures play a basic role in the feeling process.
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Antonio Damasio has continued to investigate the neural basis of feelings and demonstrated that although the insular cortex is a major substrate for this process it is not exclusive, suggesting that brain stem nuclei are critical platforms as well.
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Antonio Damasio's 1994 book, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, won the Science et Vie prize, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and is translated in over 30 languages.
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Antonio Damasio's book is Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain.
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Antonio Damasio is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
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Antonio Damasio is the recipient of several prizes, amongst them the Grawemeyer Award, the Honda Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Science and Technology and the Beaumont Medal from the American Medical Association, as well as honorary degrees from, most recently, the Sorbonne, shared with his wife Hanna Damasio.
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Antonio Damasio has received doctorates from the Universities of Aachen, Copenhagen, Leiden, Barcelona, Coimbra, Leuven and numerous others.
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In 2013, the Escola Secundaria Antonio Damasio was dedicated in Lisbon.
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Antonio Damasio is married to Hanna Damasio, a prominent neuroscientist and frequent collaborator and co-author, who is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California and the director of the Dornsife Neuroimaging Center.
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Antonio Damasio additionally serves on the board of directors of the Berggruen Institute, and sits on the jury for the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy.