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Antonio Damasio, a leading neuroscientist and professor at the University of Southern California, is renowned for his pioneering work on the brain and emotions. Awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research in 2005, he directs the Institute for the Neurological Study of Emotion and Creativity and serves as a trustee of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation. At the 33rd Future Trends Forum on Neuroscience, Damasio highlighted the evolution of neuroscience and emphasized how advances in this field, supported by disciplines like chemistry, physiology, engineering, and computer science, are enhancing our understanding of the brain. These developments promise to improve intellectual capacities, human performance, and treatments for mental and degenerative diseases, and even pave the way for brain-machine interfacing.
Damasio pointed out that traditional neuroscience focused mainly on brain functions in isolation, but 20th-century research has expanded to include the entire nervous system, studying perception, attention, memory, movement, and language—fields collectively known as cognitive neuroscience. This progress has opened doors to affective neuroscience, which explores emotions, feelings, and homeostatic sensations such as well-being and consciousness. Damasio firmly believes that deepening our knowledge of the brain and nervous system will lead to optimal health and a better quality of life, underscoring the transformative potential of neuroscience for the future.
Antonio Damasio opened the session of the Future Trends Forum on Neuroscience by talking about how knowledge of the brain and the development of neuroscience will allow us to live better.
Antonio Damasio, trustee of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, is a professor of Neuroscience and Neurology at the University of Southern California, where he directs the Institute for the Neurological Study of Emotion and Creativity. Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research in 2005, he is considered the best neuroscientist in the world and the magician of emotions, he talks to us about the brain.
At the 33rd meeting of the Future Trends Forum on Neuroscience or the Future of the Brain, Antonio Damasio opened the meeting with a Presentation of the evolution of neuroscience. This meeting discussed how knowledge of the brain and the advancement of neuroscience will help us to know ourselves better, to improve our intellectual capacities and human performance, to heal diseases or the possibility of connecting our brain with machines.
According to Damasio, the current knowledge we have about the brain is, among other things, thanks to the development of other scientific-technical disciplines such as chemistry, physiology, engineering and even computer science. Thanks to these developments we have, and we hope, a great future to improve human performance or create better treatments for mental and degenerative diseases.
Historically, neuroscience has worked with brain functions disconnected from the rest of the body’s operations. So far it has worked, but twentieth-century neuroscience has paid attention to the study of the other functions of the nervous/neural system (not just the brain) such as perception, attention, memory, movement or language.
These fields make up cognitive neuroscience, which are serving as a guide to reach other areas of study of the neuroscience of the future such as emotion or feelings, including homeostatic feelings (sense of well-being, consciousness, etc.). These aspects make up affective neuroscience.
Antonio Damasio is convinced that greater knowledge of the brain and the entire nervous system will allow us to have optimal health and, therefore, a better life. Below you can see Antonio Damasio’s lecture:
Profesor de la cátedra David Dornsife de Psicología, Neurociencia y Neurología en Universidad del Sur de California
