The character arc of Antonio Damasio
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 25 February 1944 in Lisbon. Between then and now sit medicine at the University of Lisbon Medical School through the 1960s, a neurological residency and a doctorate completed there in 1974, research in behavioural neurology in Boston under a leading figure in the field, twenty years as chair of neurology at the University of Iowa, a move to California, the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and professorships in three subjects at once, an institute he heads, and the somatic marker hypothesis. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Antonio Damasio?
He showed that feeling is how deciding actually works.
He studied medicine at the University of Lisbon Medical School during the 1960s, did his neurological residency there, and completed his doctorate in 1974. For part of his studies he researched behavioural neurology in Boston under Norman Geschwind, at a research centre for aphasia, which is where a clinician learns what happens to a person when a specific piece of brain stops working.
His field is neurobiology, and specifically the neural systems underlying emotion, decision making, memory, language and consciousness. That list looks like five subjects. He has spent a career arguing that it is one.
The idea he is known for is the somatic marker hypothesis: a theory about how emotions and their biological underpinnings are involved in decision making, positively and negatively, and often without our knowing it. Emotions, on this account, provide the scaffolding for social thinking and are required for the self to work at all. It came from patients who had lost a specific capacity and could no longer choose between two lunch options, let alone run a life.
He chaired neurology at the University of Iowa for twenty years. He is now the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology, Philosophy and Neurology at the University of Southern California, and an adjunct professor at a research institute, and he heads the Brain and Creativity Institute. He has written several books. He is described as one of the most renowned neuroscientists of his generation, and his research has shown that emotions play a central role in social thinking and in choosing.
The moments
Antonio Damasio's timeline.
The 1960s
Medicine in Lisbon
Milestone. Medicine, in his own city, in the 1960s.
The 1970s
Behavioural neurology in Boston
Milestone, and it changed everything. He learned what a person becomes when one piece of brain stops working.
A doctorate at thirty
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Doctorate finished, and the whole question already chosen.
Stay in Europe, or go
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: take the American department, taken, or build it in Lisbon. He chaired neurology at Iowa for twenty years and formulated the somatic marker hypothesis there.
The 1980s
Chair of neurology
Milestone, and it changed everything. Twenty years running a neurology department in the American midwest.
Five subjects, one question
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Five fields on paper, and he treats them as one.
The 1990s
The somatic marker hypothesis
Milestone, and it changed everything. The idea that you cannot choose anything without feeling something.
He starts writing books
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The laboratory findings, written for people outside it.
The 2000s
California, and three chairs
Milestone, and it changed everything. Neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and neurology, all at once.
The Brain and Creativity Institute
Milestone, and it changed everything. An institute with creativity in the title, run by a neurologist.
The 2010s
Emotion, and deciding
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The finding that turned three hundred years of assumption around.
The institute in California is still working on consciousness, which is the last hard problem left. What he set moving is a correction to three hundred years of assuming that feeling gets in the way of thinking, made by a Lisbon doctor who watched what happened when the feeling went.
Your turn
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His was built on patients who could reason perfectly and still not choose. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
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Sources
- Antonio Damasio, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- University of Lisbon Medical School records for his 1974 doctorate.
- University of Southern California records for his chairs and the Brain and Creativity Institute.