To compare and integrate hemispheric lateralization and spatial patterns of language mapping derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)…

Learning & Behavior - We examined giant panda paw use while feeding on bamboo to determine if this species exhibits manual lateralization. Video recordings of 21 captive giant pandas (15...

Longstanding neuroscientific debate concerns the hemispheric lateralization of emotions. Four competing views prevail. The Right-Hemisphere Model holds that all emotions are right lateralized; the…

Behavioural lateralization -behavioural side-bias or handedness- enhances neurological processing efficiency and task execution but creates a dilemma for behaviours requiring symmetry. Flight demands symmetric execution, particularly when optimising energy extraction from atmospheric updrafts during soaring. Using high-resolution biologging of 31 juvenile European honey buzzards from fledging through the completion of their first intercontinental migration leg, we show that strong lateralised circling was prevalent immediately after fledging (74%). This proportion declined to parity by migration onset, indicating developmental adjustment with increasing experience. During migration, side-biased circling was linked to wider turns taken, reduced altitude gain, and daily travel distances shortened by 13%. These findings reveal a direct trade-off between the neurological efficiency of lateralization and the aerodynamic requirements of efficient soaring. More broadly, they demonstrate that behavioural asymmetries can constrain, rather than always enhance, performance. Our results challenge the notion that lateralization is universally adaptive and highlight how experience and ontogeny modulate the balance between perceived task difficulty, neural specialization, and ecological performance.

Behavioural lateralization -behavioural side-bias or handedness- enhances neurological processing efficiency and task execution but creates a dilemma for behaviours requiring symmetry. Flight demands symmetric execution, particularly when optimising energy extraction from atmospheric updrafts during soaring. Using high-resolution biologging of 31 juvenile European honey buzzards from fledging through the completion of their first intercontinental migration leg, we show that strong lateralised circling was prevalent immediately after fledging (74%). This proportion declined to parity by migration onset, indicating developmental adjustment with increasing experience. During migration, side-biased circling was linked to wider turns taken, reduced altitude gain, and daily travel distances shortened by 13%. These findings reveal a direct trade-off between the neurological efficiency of lateralization and the aerodynamic requirements of efficient soaring. More broadly, they demonstrate that behavioural asymmetries can constrain, rather than always enhance, performance. Our results challenge the notion that lateralization is universally adaptive and highlight how experience and ontogeny modulate the balance between perceived task difficulty, neural specialization, and ecological performance.

Controversy remains regarding whether humeral neck shaft angle influences tuberosity healing in reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (rTSA) for proxima…

Summary/Abstract: This study explores the relationship between hemispheric dominance and cognitive performance among 50 undergraduate students at UNA Puno. Using the Ned Herrmann Brain Dominance…

Language is central to the cognitive and sociocultural traits that distinguish humans, yet the evolutionary emergence of this capacity is far from fully understood. This review explores how the study...

Study links brain asymmetry to number line development in chicks, revealing lateralization's crucial role in spatial-numerical cognition.

Illustration of the experimental apparatus and of the three conditions of vision. Credit: eLife (2025). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.106356.3 Lateralization of the brain—the tendency for the left and right hemispheres to specialize in different functions—underlies the development of a left-to-right mental number line, according to a study in newborn chicks. The study, published in eLife, is described by the editors as fundamental.