Here’s one we prepared earlier

This week’s edition of New Scientist has a cover article outlining a number of try-it-yourself experiments that give you an insight into the cognitive science of the mind and brain.

Hang on a minute, that sounds familiar.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if so, the British science weekly have just paid a huge complement to Tom and Matt.

The NewSci article has six sections, each covering different areas of neuroscience, and each of which uses at least one example that appeared in the Mind Hacks book, and in some cases several. Here’s the overlap:

NS: Seeing isn’t believing
MH: Hack #17 Glimpse the Gaps in Your Vision
MH: Hack #18 When Time Stands Still
MH: Hack #49 Speech is Broadband Input into Your Head
MH: Hack #59 Hear With Your Eyes: The McGurk Effect
MH: Hack #53 Put Timing Information Into Sound and Location Information into Light

NS: This is not my nose
MH: Hack #63 Keep Hold of Yourself
MH: Hack #64 Mold Your Body Schema

NS: A Brain of two halves
MH: Hack #69 Use Your Right Brain – And Your Left, Too

NS: Probe your subconscious
MH: Hack #80 Act Without Knowing It

NS: Pay attention!
MH: Hack #36 Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention
MH: Hack #40 Blind to change
MH: Hack #41 Make Things Invisible Simply by Concentrating (On Something Else)

NS: Made-up memories
MH: Hack #85 Create false memories

Actually, several of the NewSci sections have completely new examples and have otherwise added updates with the latest scientific findings. A few discuss areas untouched in the book, but mainly they cover the same ground.

If you’ve got the book already, it’s an interesting update with some new experiments to try. And if you haven’t, it’s like the book, but shorter.

In fact, some of the article text mirrors the flow of the book rather closely. And not even a favourable nod to Tom and Matt. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

Sadly, the article isn’t freely available online, so you’ll have to buy a copy to have a look.

UPDATE: Grabbed from a comments, feedback from the author:

Yes, Mind Hacks was a major inspiration for this article. But there’s loads of new stuff in there too. And it does give a nod to Tom Stafford and Matt Webb. That’s why it says at the end “Further Reading: Mind Hacks: Tips and tools for using your brain, by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb (O’Reilly 2006).”

Keep up the good work!

Thanks Graham. Unfortunately, the Further Reading section doesn’t appear on the online version, which is why I missed it.

Link to Scientific American. Petty, I know.
Link to NewSci article. The world is at peace.

An annotated guide to books on the brain

The Dana Foundation have collected a list of widely praised books on the mind and brain that cover everything from academic texts to compelling fiction. Every book on the list is accompanied by a brief write-up.

It’s an extensive list with a number of great books on the list. My only reservation is that David Marr’s Vision (ISBN 0716715678) is missing.

I’ll get round to writing more about Marr in the future, as he is probably one of the most influential figures in 20th century neuroscience.

An amazing feet considering his book was written while he was dying from leukaemia, to which he eventually succumbed at the age of 35.

Vision was published after his death and has had a massive impact on vision science, neuropsychology and computational neuroscience – the latter of which was largely inspired by his work.

It’s also the only academic neuroscience book I’ve ever read which starts with the line: “This book is meant to be enjoyed”.

I read about the Dana guide on the excellent My Mind on Books – a site dedicated to mind, brain and cognitive science books – which also comes highly recommended.

Link to ‘Important Books on the Brain’ from the Dana Foundation.
Link to My Mind on Books.

Patient HM marks 50 years in science with new study

A new study has been published on Patient HM, marking fifty years of participation in neuroscience research since the first study was published in 1957.

HM was suffering from incapacitating epileptic seizures that were not helped by any of the medications of the 1950s.

As a last resort, neurosurgeon William Scoville tried an experimental operation to remove 8cms of tissue on both sides of the inner parts of his temporal lobes, including both hippocampi, hopefully also removing the source of his seizures.

Neurosurgery to treat otherwise untreatable epilepsy is still common and highly effective, although this type of operation isn’t used any more.

This is largely because HM’s seizures reduced considerably, but he was left with a severe amnesia, meaning he couldn’t seem to lay down any new conscious memories, although could remember things that occurred before his surgery.

Because of his seemingly unique memory impairment and an exact knowledge of which brain areas were missing, he has become a regular in neuroscience research that has aimed to understand what his impairment tells us about how normal memory is supported by the brain.

This new study is no exception. The researchers, Profs Veronique Bohbot and Suzanne Corkin, guessed on the basis of the existing evidence that the right parahippocampal cortex would be enough to support spatial learning and navigation.

The right side of the brain is known to be specialised for understanding 3D space and some of the parahippocampal cortex, an area adjacent to the surgically removed hippocampus, remained in HM’s brain.

So the researchers used a task where a sensor is hidden under a section of carpet in a room which beeped when it was stepped on.

The participants were asked to find it just by exploration, and subsequently, they were taken to different parts of the room and asked to re-find it.

Despite having no conscious memories of previous tries, HM began to find the sensor quite accurately, much more accurately than if he was just stumbling across it by chance alone.

This suggests that his remaining part of HM’s parahippocampal cortex was enough to support spatial memory, and importantly, that the brain areas missing in HM, although they would help, are probably not essential for navigation.

HM has participated some key studies through the decades and has outlasted many in the field. He probably doesn’t realise it, but he’s been one of the most important people in neuroscience.

Link to abstract of scientific study.
Link to NPR radio show on HM and memory.
Link to Wikipedia entry on HM.
pdf of 1957 study on HM.

Girls have a bigger crockus

The excellent Language Log have discovered that an ‘expert’ invited to give a talk to a district education group not only invented a completely bogus part of the brain called the ‘crockus’, but claimed that it’s four times larger in girls and used this fact to back up recommendations for the teaching of children.

Language Log writer Mark Liberman notes that a study found a minor sex difference in the pars opercularis, a genuine brain area in the approximate location of the fictional ‘crockus’.

Although the study found the opposite pattern (it tends to be larger in boys), Liberman wondered whether the speaker may have misremembered both the name of the genuine brain area and the gist of the study.

So, he emailed the speaker to ask more.

In response, he got an answer that would be comically brilliant if it wasn’t deadly serious:

Thanks for asking….The Crockus was actually just recently named by Dr. Alfred Crockus. It is the detailed section of the brain, a part of the frontal lope. It is the detailed section of the brain. You are right, it is four times larger in females then males from birth.

This part of the brain supports the Corpus Callosum (the part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. The larger the crockus the more details are percieved by the two sides of the brain.

Dr Alfred Crockus, we salute you sir!

Link to Language Log on ‘High Crockalorum’ (via BadScience).

Music, love survives the densest amnesia

Oliver Sacks has written an engaging piece for the latest edition of the The New Yorker on how musical ability can survive even the most severe amnesia, with particular reference to the famous case of Clive Wearing.

Wearing was a renowned classical musicologist and conductor, involved in recreating some of the most challenging Renaissance works. You can still find him in the sleeve notes of some of his professional recordings, usually described as having retired due to ‘ill health’.

In his case, ill health meant being struck by herpes simplex encephalitis, a viral infection that is known to attack the key memory areas in the brain, leaving him with a dense amnesia.

Even today, he is severely memory-impaired and remains unable to maintain anything in his conscious memory for more than a few seconds.

But in an almost Homeric twist of fate, as if he had bargained with the Gods themselves, he retained the memory that he loved his wife, and his ability to play music.

Clive has been the subject of two documentaries (clips of which are available online) and a recent book by his wife, entitled Forever Today (ISBN 0385606265).

He’s also been the subject of various scientific studies, summarised in a chapter of the book Broken Memories: Case Studies in Memory Impairment (ISBN 0631187235).

This chapter is co-written by Clive’s wife and Prof Barbara Wilson, a respected British neuropsychologist who specialises in memory.

The chapter contains a wealth of information about the neuropsychology of his memory, but also contains this interesting snippet:

For many years, Clive has experienced auditory hallucinations. He hears what he thinks is a tape of himself playing in the distance. He refers to this in his diaries as a ‘master tape’ (a term used in broadcasting for the original audiotape which should be protected from casual use and should certainly not leave the studio).

If asked to sing what he can hear – a sound only ever heard in the distance – he picks the tune up in the middle and is puzzled that no-one else can hear it. Half an hour later when asked to sing what he can hear it is usually the same tune but sometimes sung in a different style as if it were replaying in variations.

The New Yorker article is written with Sacks’ trademark sensitivity and wonder, and is a engrossing exploration of music and memory.

It comes shortly before the release of his new book Musicophilia, of which there is a short audio excerpt on the bottom of the book’s webpage.

Link to New Yorker article ‘Music and amnesia’.

The most unaccountable of machinery

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery ‚Äî always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?”

English novelist Virginia Woolf, writing in a December 28, 1932, letter.

Woolf was one of the most brilliant writers of her generation and a significant influence on the modernist movement of the time.

She also suffered from profound depressions and eventually committed suicide at the age of 59 rather than suffer another mental breakdown.

A recent article in the journal PsyArt examined the work of Woolf and the American poet Sylvia Plath in light of what we now know about the factors that influence the likelihood of suicide.

Link to Wikipedia page on Virginia Woolf.
Link to ‘Suicidal Risk Factors in Lives of Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath’.

Lucid dreaming in art and science

The New York Times has a short article on the recent upsurge of interest in both the arts and sciences on lucid dreaming – a form of reflective self-awareness in which you realise you’re dreaming when it occurs.

You can apparently train yourself to increase your chances of having a lucid dream, and proponents say that the self-awareness allows you to change your ‘dream reality’ at will.

Unfortunately, it’s jolly hard to study scientifically, because its rare, unpredictable and you can’t signal when it occurs.

This means its hard even to make simple correlations between lucid dreaming and measures of brain activity.

Although occasional studies have attempted to study it in ‘proficient’ lucid dreamers, it’s also been used as the basis for a philosophical analysis of what it tells us about different types of consciousness.

We normally assume we’re unconscious during sleep, yet lucid dreaming suggests that while we have reflective self-consciousness (usually considered the ‘highest form’ of consciousness), we don’t experience the ‘lower’ form of perceptual conscious awareness to the same degree.

Apparently, The Good Night, a film shortly to appear in cinemas, has lucid dreaming as its central theme. The trailer for the movie is available here as an embedded video.

Link to NYT article ‘Living Your Dreams, in a Manner of Speaking’.

Classic video of split-brain patient online

YouTube hosts a classic video of one of the famous ‘split-brain’ patients who had his corpus callosum surgically cut to treat otherwise untreatable epilepsy, effectively separating the two hemispheres of the brain.

This procedure is intended to stop seizures spreading across the brain and its effects were first studied in depth by Roger Sperry, who won a Nobel prize for his work demonstrating that the patients experienced, in certain situations, a sort of split consciousness.

Split-brain patients have been incredibly important in cognitive neuroscience, because the procedure prevents information travelling from one side of the cortex to the other.

The left-most and right-most areas of your vision go directly to the opposite hemisphere, and the same goes for touch information from your hands. Information from the left hand goes to your right hemisphere and vice versa.

In people who have an intact corpus callosum, the information is then communicated to the other hemisphere as well, so the whole brain has access. In split-brain patients, only one hemisphere has access.

Sperry worked with neuropsychologist Michael Gazzaniga who used this effect to demonstrate how each hemisphere could be specialised for different functions.

In the video, Gazzaniga runs Joe, a split-brain patient, through one of these experiments and demonstrates various interesting effects.

For example, it shows how Joe can read words that appear to the right because they get transmitted to the left hemisphere which is specialised for language.

However, Joe can’t read words that appear to the left, because they get transmitted to the language-limited right hemisphere, but he can draw what the word describes with the appropriate hand, because the right hemisphere is specialised for spatial functions.

He can then look at his own picture, making the information available to the left hemisphere, and only then can he name it.

There have been many variations on these experiments that have demonstrated a number of curious effects about brain specialisation and consciousness, some of which are described in a Scientific American article by Gazzaniga.

One of the most interesting things is that the patients don’t feel that their conscious mind is any different, but their split consciousness can be demonstrated experimentally, as shown in the video.

Link to split-brain video.
Link to copy of SciAm article ‘The Split Brain Revisited’.

Lucky escape from crossbow brain injury

A paper in the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery reports on a remarkable case of a man who tried to commit suicide with a crossbow and shot an arrow through his neck into his brain. Thankfully he survived with seemingly little long-term impairment.

Shadid_et_al_images.jpg

The arrow missed all major blood vessels and did not seem to seriously damage any crucial brain areas, although the gentleman lost some sight due to severing part of the optic nerve.

The case report reads:

A 25-year-old man, presented to the accident and emergency department, after having fired an 18-inch arrow with a metal point from a crossbow just beneath his chin in an attempt to kill himself.

He was known to be addicted to cocaine, was depressed, and had been feeling low for several months. He had tried to explain his state of mind to his girlfriend, and a month later he attempted suicide.

The entry point of the arrow was apparent through the anterior part of the neck, and close to the midline. There was no active bleeding. The arrow crossed the mouth and had passed behind the soft palate, which resulted in mechanical trismus and therefore a potentially difficult intubation.

Nasotracheal fibreoptic intubation [camera through the nose] was eventually completed. With the patient anaesthetised, plain radiographs and computed tomograms (CT) were taken urgently; these showed that the arrow had passed up through the brain, and the tip was protruding through a comminuted fracture of the skull vault.

In view of the location, and to assess soft tissue damage further, a magnetic resonance cerebral angiogram was taken, which showed the anatomy clearly, in particular no vascular injury.

The patient was therefore transferred to the nearest neurosurgical centre for definitive treatment. Under general anaesthesia and together with the maxillofacial surgeons, the arrow was withdrawn gently along the precise path of its insertion. This was followed by profuse bleeding from behind the soft palate and base of skull, which had been anticipated and was controlled by a post-nasal pack. No further intervention proved necessary.

His recovery was uneventful, but he lost the sight in his right eye as a result of damage to the right optic nerve. No other neurological deficit was documented. The patient was given psychiatric care for several months for further management of his depression, which had been the cause of his attempted suicide.

Link to PubMed entry for case report.

Harry Potter, migraines and the neuroscience of self

A funny article in the medical journal Headache discusses Harry Potter’s difficulties with what seems to be a recurrent migraine. This isn’t the first time that Harry has turned up in the medical literature. In fact, he’s made almost 20 appearances so far.

However, this is the first to consider his neurological problems in detail:

Harry Potter and the curse of headache.

Sheftell F, Steiner TJ, Thomas H.

Headache. 2007, Volume 47, Issue 6, p911-6.

Headache disorders are common in children and adolescents. Even young male Wizards are disabled by them. In this article we review Harry Potter’s headaches as described in the biographical series by JK Rowling. Moreover, we attempt to classify them. Regrettably we are not privy to the Wizard system of classifying headache disorders and are therefore limited to the Muggle method, the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd edition (ICHD-II; pdf). Harry’s headaches are recurrent. Although conforming to a basic stereotype, and constant in location, throughout the 6 years of his adolescence so far described they have shown a tendency to progression. Later descriptions include a range of accompanying symptoms. Despite some quite unusual features, they meet all but one of the ICHD-II criteria for migraine, so allowing the diagnosis of 1.6 Probable migraine.

The young wizard also appeared in a recent fMRI study [pdf] that investigated which brain areas would be most active when children and adults thought about themselves compared to others.

In the study, participants were brain scanned while being shown short descriptions and were asked to indicate whether they best described themselves or someone else.

One difficulty is that the ‘someone else’ needs to be well known to both children and adults, so Harry Potter was chosen.

In the final study, when participants judged that the phrase described themself, rather than Harry, the medial (midline) part of the frontal lobes were relatively more active.

Interestingly, this area was significantly more active in children than adults, possibly suggesting that this task requires more effort for children and becomes easier as we age.

Link to PubMed entry for Harry Potter headache article.
Link to abstract of self vs other study.
pdf of self vs other study.

Brain stem may be key to consciousness

An article in this week’s Science News discusses whether the brain stem may play a more central role in consciousness than it’s usually given credit for.

It focuses on children with hydranencephaly, a where the cortex fails to develop in children and instead, the space is filled with cerebral spinal fluid.

Typically, affected children survive only a few months after birth, but those that do survive seem to remarkably more conscious than you would guess based on theories that suggest the cortex is where all the action happens to support consciousness.

Swedish neuroscientist Bjorn Merker wrote an article [pdf] in February’s Behavioural and Brain Sciences journal arguing that these cases suggest we need to rethink our ideas about how the brain supports conscious thought, and perhaps, even consciousness itself.

Merker argues that the brain stem supports an elementary form of conscious thought in kids with hydranencephaly. It also contains auditory structures capable of preserving hearing in someone without a cortex. In contrast, optic nerve damage in hydranencephaly frequently impairs vision, regardless of what the brain stem does.

Self-awareness and other “higher” forms of thought may require cortical contributions. But Merker posits that “primary consciousness,” which he regards as an ability to integrate sensations from the environment with one’s immediate goals and feelings in order to guide behavior, springs from the brain stem.

If he’s right, virtually all vertebrates‚Äîwhich share a similar brain stem design‚Äîbelong to the “primary consciousness” club. Moreover, medical definitions of brain death as a lack of cortical activity would face a serious challenge. At the very least, physicians could no longer assume that individuals with hydranencephaly don’t need pain medication or anesthesia during invasive medical procedures.

Link to Science News article ‘Consciousness in the Raw’.
pdf of BBS article ‘Consciousness without a cerebral cortex’.

2007-09-14 Spike activity

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

Female drug reps turn up surprisingly often as contestants on reality TV. Likely due to the fact that pharma companies make a point of hiring persuasively beautiful young women, such as cheerleaders and beauty queens.

Review of Pinker’s new book slams ‘The Edifice of Pinkerism‘. What a great name for a metal band!

BBC News reports on a randomised controlled trial that found that common food additives increase levels of hyperactivity in children.

Also from BBC News, depression associated with worse overall health.

The New York Times looks at some recent studies which show shown a small but significant link between the reduction in antidepressant prescribing and increase in youth suicide. Other data is more mixed, however.

Yahoo! News has a remarkably in-depth article on the difficulties of US soldiers returning home with brain injuries.

The Wilson Quarterly has a review of ‘Second Nature: Brain Science and Human ¬≠Knowledge’ by neurobiologist Gerald M. Edelman.

Delusional social networkers: A study I did a while ago gets picked up by Three Toed Sloth.

The Menstrual Joy Questionnaire: The Guardian takes a look at one of the more curious corners of psychology research.

SciAm Mind Matters discusses ‘Saying no to yourself: the neural mechanisms of self-control‘.

Interesting reading pattern discovered: When reading, each eye is focused on a different letter for approximately 50% of the time.

The LA Times has more on Elyn Saks, a successful law professor who lives with schizophrenia.

Scientists Spot Brain’s ‘Free Willy‘ Center. Just the title made me laugh out loud. More from Neurocritic on the neuroscience of free will.

The technique is new, but the finding isn’t: 3D face scans show distinctive facial structure for certain genetic syndromes. Media mangle the science, scientist loses his rag.

AddictionInfo has a section of articles on the history of the ‘disease model‘ of addiction.

ScienceDaily with the rather optimistic headline ‘brain network related to intelligence identified’.

Brief description of Capgras Syndrome in the NYT. Contrary to the author’s surprise it’s actually fairly common in older people with dementia and psychosis.

PsychCentral lists the Top 10 bipolar blogs.

Charity Autism Speaks created the traumatic ‘Autism Every Day’ advert. Some people with autism reply with the sardonic ‘Neurotypicalism Every Day’ video.

Would you go to bed with me?

A new book on unusual experiments covers a study by psychologist Russell Clark that involved good-looking researchers approaching strangers of the opposite sex and telling them that they had seen them around and found them very attractive. Then they either asked them for a date, to come back to the researcher’s apartment, or to go to bed with them.

If this seems strangely familiar, it’s because the main set up line for the study (“I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?”) was used almost verbatim for the main hook of the pop song ‘Would you…?’ by Touch and Go.

If you don’t recognise the name, you’ll almost certainly recognise the song, as it was a huge hit in ’98 and has been used almost constantly since for adverts, television and radio.

The original video doesn’t seem to be available online, but there’s a quirky version on YouTube where some Belgian students have created their own video.

It is, as far as I know, the only pop song with lyrics based on the protocol for a psychology experiment.

The results of the study? As if you had to ask, almost all the men said yes, none of the women did.

It doesn’t even come close to the greatest psychology study ever completed though, which also involved beautiful women, sex and danger. But that’ll have to wait for another time.

Link to abstract of study.
Link to brief write-up (via BB).
Link to fan tribute to Touch and Go’s ‘Would you…?’

Moral psychology and religious mistakes

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written a thought-provoking essay for Edge which charts the recent revolution in the psychology and neuroscience of moral reasoning and suggests that the current critiques of religion have mischaracterised its true nature, based on these new findings.

Haidt summarises the main tenants of the new science of morality as four main principles:

1) Intuitive primacy but not dictatorship. This is the idea, going back to Wilhelm Wundt and channeled through Robert Zajonc and John Bargh, that the mind is driven by constant flashes of affect in response to everything we see and hear.

2) Moral thinking is for social doing. This is a play on William James‘ pragmatist dictum that thinking is for doing, updated by newer work on Machiavellian intelligence. The basic idea is that we did not evolve language and reasoning because they helped us to find truth; we evolved these skills because they were useful to their bearers, and among their greatest benefits were reputation management and manipulation.

3) Morality binds and builds. This is the idea stated most forcefully by Emile Durkheim that morality is a set of constraints that binds people together into an emergent collective entity.

4) Morality is about more than harm and fairness. In moral psychology and moral philosophy, morality is almost always about how people treat each other. Here’s an influential definition from the Berkeley psychologist Elliot Turiel: morality refers to “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other.”

The essay then goes on to discuss how the recent findings in then area apply to the ongoing debate between the ‘new atheists‘ (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and the like) and religion.

In particular, Haidt suggests that the recent criticisms of religion don’t always reflect the best psychological understanding of what are primarily social, rather than ideological, institutions, and notes research findings showing that religious people tend to be happier and more altruistic than others.

As a self-professed non-believer and high-profile social psychologist, Haidt makes some interesting points that are bound to cause controversy.

Link to essay ‘Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of religion’.

The remarkable Princess Alice

I’ve just discovered the remarkable life of Princess Alice of Battenberg, who was Prince Philip’s mother, the current Queen’s mother-in-law.

She was deaf from birth, dedicated her life to charity work and nursing, became psychotic, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent two years in a psychiatric hospital, founded an order of nuns, and was declared one of the ‘Righteous among the Nations‘ for risking her life by hiding a Jewish family from the Gestapo when Greece was occupied.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography she was treated by the psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger, one of the founders of existential psychology.

Apparently, she was a patient in the same hospital as Vaslav Nijinsky, the legendary ballet dancer and choreographer who succumbed to schizophrenia in his 20s.

Ludwig’s uncle, Otto Binswanger was also a psychiatrist of some note, after whom Binswangers disease, a type of subcortical dementia, is named.

Link to Wikipedia biography of Princess Alice.

Bart Kosko on noise and optimisation

Neural network and ‘fuzzy thinking’ researcher Bart Kosko is briefly interviewed in this month’s Wired where he argues that adding noise to a system, including the human one, may improve performance.

It reminded me of part of a colourful interview he did for the 1998 book Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks – a wonderful collection of personal memories from key scientists in artificial intelligence.

I like to ask researchers where they get their ideas. The only answer I’ve heard that makes sense is, “You vary your input if you want to vary your output.” Do lots of things. If you’ve gotta take drugs, take drugs. Take long walks, meditate, watch a lot of movies, learn a new language, read different books, argue the other side of the debate – anything you can to vary your stimuli.

And then you have to, as they say, “keep the ass in the seat.” You actually have to sit down and write. Do it in a disciplined way. I think if people have a certain minimal training in mathematics, the problem will take care of itself because neural networks are inherently interesting, and I believe they will stay interesting well into the next century.

The rest of Kosko’s Talking Nets interview covers topics as diverse as libertarian politics, cognitive maps, God, the mathematics of fuzzy systems, the economics of marijuana, organising neural network conferences and cryogenic nanobots.

Link to brief Kosko interview in Wired.
Link to Talking Nets book details.

UPDATE: Thanks to Daniel for finding the full Talking Nets interview on Google Books. You can read it here.