He studied medicine at the University of Lisbon and specialised in neurology before moving to the United States to work as a neuroscience researcher. 

Thanks to his contributions to the study of consciousness and brain processes linked to feelings, great mysteries in the study of the human mind, he has become one of the leading names in the field and has received important awards such as the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research (2015) and the Grawemeyer Award (2014), as well as honorary degrees from several universities around the world. He currently holds the David Dornsife Chair in Neurology, Philosophy and Psychology and directs the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. 

He is the author of several popular science books and other specialised books that have allowed a wide dissemination of his discoveries, as well as of the main unknowns that still govern neuroscience. His work, published in Spanish and Catalan by the publishing house Destino and translated into more than thirty languages, includes books that combine science and philosophy such as El error de Descartes (1994), where he questions one of the great assumptions of Western thought: the independent existence of the mind with respect to the body; I el cervell va crear a l'home (2010), where he reviews the evolution of the human mind and the origins of consciousness; and the collection of informative articles Sentir y saber. El camino de la conciencia (2021).