April 20, 2007

The Man With the Brains

By ERIK VANCE

Listening to Patrick R. Hof talk about animal brains is like listening to a child recite his Christmas list. "I don't have a hippo brain," he says wistfully. "I would like to have a hippo brain."

Mr. Hof is a professor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where he specializes in schizophrenia and illnesses of aging, like dementia. He is a trim man with small glasses and short gray hair. He speaks with a thick French accent, and his speech is peppered with the impenetrable