Aspectos cognitivos e comportamentais da lateralidade em psitacídeos: uma revisão sistemática

Abstract

Laterality is defined as asymmetries of bilateral structures or behavioral biases, being expressed in both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. One of the forms of laterality manifestation is through the preference for a specific limb, or for a monocular field of vision, as happens with parrots. The aim of this study was to gather information about laterality in parrots from a literature review. The survey on the topic was carried out in the following databases: CABI, Web of Science, and Scopus. The initial search reached a total of 76 references that reached a total of 19 full articles eligible for inclusion in the qualitative synthesis, after filtering and selection. From this total, four of the articles reviewed the theme, five of the original papers were related to preference for a specific limb, two discussed eye preference, other five addressed cognitive aspects, one argued on the ontogenesis of laterality and, finally, three investigated the neural bases of laterality in parrots. The first reports related to handedness in the Psittacidae family date back to the 17th century, but it was not until the 20th century that handedness was quantified and related to behavioral and physiological traits. One of the ways of evaluating laterality is through the preference for a limb, or footedness, in which Psittacidae almost exclusively, depending on the strength of laterality, use a specific foot to manipulate food, being able to be right-handed, left-handed or ambidextrous, when they use both limbs in the same proportion. Another way to quantify laterality is through the preference for one side of the monocular vision, and this choice is related to the greater use of the contralateral cerebral hemisphere. One of the advantages associated with handedness is that it increases cognitive ability in general, as it can promote simultaneous processing of information. However, animals are not born expressing laterality, the ontogenetic development of this trait occurs after the eggs hatch, with the young beginning to express a preference for a specific side at the end of the fourth week of life. Finally, in relation to the brain neuroanatomy of lateralized parrots, an association is present between the individual's body size and the strength of laterality, that is, the larger the animal, the more it will be lateralized and the greater its brain mass, which could be closely related to cognitive ability since a greater number of neurons corresponds to a greater ability to process information. Thus, this study generated a compilation of data present in the literature about the Psittacidae family, involving several behavioral, physiological and cognitive aspects. However, there were gaps because there are not enough studies related to the Latin American species of the family, which results in a lack of data relating the laterality with the personality and temperament of individuals. This characterizes this field as promising for future research involving this theme.