Table of Contents

Introduction xi

PART I

Unpleasantness in Vermont 3

Gage's Brain Revealed 20

A Modern Phineas Gage 34

In Colder Blood 52

PART II

Assembling an Explanation 83

Biological Regulation and Survival 114

Emotions and Feelings 127

The Somatic-Marker Hypothesis 165

PART III

Testing the Somatic-Marker Hypothesis 205

The Body-Minded Brain 223

A Passion for Reasoning 245

Postscriptum 253

Notes and References 269

Further Reading 293

Acknowledgments 299

Index 301

About the Author

Antonio Damasio, a neurologist and neuroscientist, is at the University of Southern California, where he directs a new brain research institute dedicated to the study of emotion and creativity. He is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. The recipient of numerous awards (several shared with his wife Hanna Damasio, also a neurologist and neuroscientist), he is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of two other widely acclaimed books, The Feeling of What Happens and Looking for Spinoza.

Reviews

"An ambitious and meticulous foray into the nature of being." -- The Boston Globe

"We may well be about to discover that the heart is after all in the head." -- Financial Times

"Damasio's arguments are ingenious and wide ranging...His thoughtful and modest exposition should be taken seriously...It is no mean feat to say something original and intelligible about emotion." -- Nature

The idea that the mind exists as a distinct entity from the body has profoundly influenced Western culture since Descartes proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am." Damasio, head of neurology at the University of Iowa and a prominent researcher on human brain function, challenges this premise in a fascinating and well-reasoned argument on the central role that emotion and feelings play in human rationality. According to Damasio, the same brain structures regulate both human biology and behavior and are indispensable to normal cognitive processes. Damasio demonstrates how patients (his own as well as the 19th-century railroad worker Nicholas Gage) with prefrontal cortical damage can no longer generate the emotions necessary for effective decision-making. A gifted scientist and writer, Damasio combines an Oliver Sack-like reportage with the presentation of complex, theoretical issues in neurobiology. Recommended for wide purchase.-Laurie Bartolini, Legislative Research, Springfield, Ill.

"An ambitious and meticulous foray into the nature of being." -- The Boston Globe

"We may well be about to discover that the heart is after all in the head." -- Financial Times

"Damasio's arguments are ingenious and wide ranging...His thoughtful and modest exposition should be taken seriously...It is no mean feat to say something original and intelligible about emotion." -- Nature