Antonio Damasio

Antonio Damasio (born 1944) is a Portuguese-American neuroscientist and author whose research explores how emotion shapes reasoning, decision-making, and consciousness. He is the David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. Damasio previously worked at the University of Iowa, where he helped advance the study of patients with brain lesions to understand the neural basis of behavior. His influential books for general readers include *Descartes’ Error* (1994), *The Feeling of What Happens* (1999), and *Self Comes to Mind* (2010), which argue that feelings are central to the mind and self.