Gil Carvalho M.D., Ph. D.

Gil Carvalho, MD, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist and researcher at the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California. He obtained his Medical doctorate from the University of Lisbon, and a Ph.D. in Biology from CalTech. Gil was a lead co-investigator with Antonio Damasio in ‘The nature of feelings: evolutionary and neurobiological origins’. Gil is published in academic journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; Nature Reviews and Neuroscience; Trends in Neurosciences; and Current Biology. His work has been cited over a thousand times. Dr. Carvalho’s research examining the role of non-synaptic communication in the interoceptive nervous system is presented in his most recent publication ‘Non-Synaptic Transmission and the Foundations of Affect’. Carvalho and Damasio suggest that non-synaptic transmission makes a fundamental contribution to the process of sensing visceral states, which is essential to the capacity to feel and the foundation of affective processing.

What Gil knows that matters to you: Your body is aware of threats to your survival happening inside and outside of your body. It perceives those threats and makes spontaneous adaptations to increase your potential to survive those threats, often without your awareness or consent. Included in those adaptations are emotions and behaviors.