David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology · University of Southern California (USC)
World-renowned neuroscientist and author whose seminal research uncovered the neural substrates of emotion, feelings, decision-making, and consciousness. Pioneer of the somatic marker hypothesis and foundational works on homeostasis in cognitive architecture.
Antonio Damasio is Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy, and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Trained as both neurologist and neuroscientist, Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of brain processes underlying affect, decision-making and consciousness. His work has made a major impact in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. He is the author of several hundred scientific articles and is one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era (see Damasio, A. in R. Sternberg, S. Fiske, D. Foss (Eds.), Scientists Making a Difference: One Hundred Eminent Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions, 2016). He is one of the most cited scientists worldwide. [Google Scholar H Index is 177; with 282,590 citations and Web of Science H Index is 103; with 60,700 citations].
Damasio’s recent work addresses the biology of consciousness, the role of life regulation in the generation of cultures, and the distinctions between Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Recent articles include Singer, J. and Damasio, A. (2025). The Physiology of Interoception and Its Adaptive Role in Consciousness, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 380(1939), Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2024). Sensing, Feeling and Consciousness, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379(1908), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0243; Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2024) Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(8), 1653-1659, doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02119; Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2023) A Joint Interview of Neuron Special Issue: Neuroscience unbounded, Vol. 111(21), 3337-3340; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2023). Feelings are the Source of Consciousness, Neural Computation, (35)3, 277-286; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2022). Homeostatic Feelings and the Biology of Consciousness, BRAIN, Oxford Academic, Vol. 145; 2231-2235; Carvalho, G. and Damasio, A. (2021). Interoception and the Origin of Feelings: A New Synthesis, BioEssays, https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000261; Vaccaro, A., Kaplan, J., & Damasio, A. (2020). Bittersweet: The Neuroscience of Ambivalent Affect. Perspectives of Psychological Science. 15(5), 1187-1199; Man, K. and Damasio, A. (2019). Homeostasis and Soft Robotics in the Design of Feeling Machines. Nature Machine Intelligence, 1, 446–452. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0103-7. Damasio’s books include Descartes’ Error, The Feeling of What Happens, Looking for Spinoza, Self Comes to Mind, The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures, and Feeling and Knowing, which are translated worldwide and taught in numerous universities. His new book, Natural Intelligence & The Logic of Consciousness (September 2026) has just been published. It is currently available in the US and UK original and in 16 translations worldwide. (10/26)
Damasio is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. He has received numerous prizes, among them the Paul MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine [2019], the International Freud Medal [2017], the Grawemeyer Award [2014], the Honda Prize [2010], the Prince of Asturias Prize in Science and Technology [2005], the Nonino Prize as Master of Our Time [2003] and the Pessoa Prize [1992]. He holds Honorary Doctorates from leading universities, some shared with his wife Hanna, e.g., the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne [EPFL], 2011 and the Sorbonne [Université Paris Descartes], 2015. In 2013 the Escola Secundária Antonio Damasio was dedicated in his native Lisbon. From 2016 to February of 2024, Damasio was a member of the Council of State of Portugal. In 2025 he received the Medal of Honor of the City of Lisbon. In 2026 he received The Public Value Award from Leipzig University.
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