Birds Show Cognitive Attributes on Par With Mammals - Essay Sample

Introduction

Scientists have discovered that birds possess cognitive attributes that equal or surpass those of mammals. For example, parrots and corvids exhibit cognitive prowess superior to other birds, similar to those of apes across the universe in several psychological aspects. These birds show behavioral competency within the elements of object durability, events memory, philosophy of reasoning, and tool application/ spontaneous thinking that scholars refer to as intuitive (Puelles, 2018).

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These resemblances between birds' cognitive nature and humans concerning their behavioral degree give inference of convergent evolution. To understand similarities in the cognitive operations of birds and humans, one needs to examine the telencephalon structures of the two animals, which scientists have discovered indicate a high level of resemblance (Puelles, 2018).The intention of this paper concerns the examination of early discovery, later discovery, and what currently highlights the avian brain.

Early Discoveries on the Avian Brain

Cognizance refers to physiognomies of the mind that consists of qualities, such as self-awareness and partiality. Besides, scientists argue that it encompasses cognitive abilities, such as insight and viewpoint capabilities concerning interactions between oneself and its surroundings. It is not easy to redefine the evolutionary history of cognizance. Two theories exist, one that employs a taxonomic approach and the other that applies structural influences. The taxonomic approach asserts that ancestries neighboring the Homo species, possibly have more considerable cognitive prowess and consciousness (Reiner et al., 2004). From the assertion mentioned above, cognizance decreases from apes to monkeys, then to non-primate mammals, and lastly to birds.

Scientists argue that during the evolution that resulted in chimpanzees from fish, a transformation occurred in the nervous system that changed animals that primarily behaved basically into one that alerted its mind of the motives of its conduct (Karten, 2015). Structural influences involve the behavior of the neocortex. Scientists suggest that the process of conveying messages through neurotransmitters encouraged the evolutionary era that enabled cognizance in mammals and birds (Karten, 2015). Both theories, therefore, indicate that birds have no capabilities to equal or surpass humans in cognitive superiority.

Early discoveries did not portray birds as having cognitive abilities believed to belong to the apes primarily. On the contrary, current research indicates that parrots and corvids can show this prowess. Scientists believe that cortical lamination occurred in the ancient period, which then the reptiles and birds abandoned. Scientists discovered this from assessing the forebrain structure of tuatara (a lizard-like crocodile) that have reserved their primitive personalities (Reiter et al., 2017). The discovery indicates that sauropsids, which evolved into birds and reptiles, had already inherited the laminated forebrain. Research findings based on fossil records contradict the ultimate view of the phylogenetic scale-the amniote ancestries leading to mammals and reptiles separating over 300 million years ago (Reiter et al., 2017).

The ancestral lineage that led to the evolution of mammals before reptiles and birds evolved from the reptilian family over 200 million years ago. The Ancient studies since the late 1960's support the idea of previous philosophies of brain evolution, resulting from the perspective of the phylogenetic scale, which had faults. Some research findings indicate that telencephalon size inversely linked to the phylogenetic era (Kirsch, Gunturkun & Rose, 2008). Besides, non-mammalian amniotes have reptilian complex, and also similar structures of the paleo-mammalian and neo-mammalian brain structures. Additive theories suggest that the reptilian complex, neo-mammalian, and paleo-mammalian brain structures should not show similarities to non-mammals brain structures.

Later Discoveries

For many years, theories of brain evolution consist of viewpoints on the phylogenetic scale. Under this anthropocentric paradigm, every species was classified on a non-linear, progressive, and evolutionary scale based on its evolutionary period and relative complexity (Shimizu & Bowers, 1999). Scientists assumed that phylogenetically ancient life forms, such as fish, were not advanced as the modern life forms, such as the apes. Scientists believed that the brain evolved from small, pure, and homogeneous to large, complex, and segregated forms.

The late discoveries indicate that the relative evolutionary period of species portrays an enhanced brain capacity, similar to that of the human brain. The late development also highlighted the concept of the phylogenetic scale from the additive theories, whereby it was proposed that new frameworks allow for the adaptations of species to new environments (Medina, Abellan & Desfilis, 2017). MacLean additive theory suggests that the human brain consists of three exclusively hereditary mainframes, such as the reptilian complex, the paleo-mammalian mind, and the neo-mammalian brain.

The theory asserts that during the evolution of amniotes, the emerging structures, such as the limbic system, dorsal thalamus, and isocortex, embedded in the primary reptilian complex for new, higher cognitive operatives (Medina & Reiner, 2000). Besides, the approach argues that even though all amniote species, including reptiles and birds, have the reptilian core, only apes possess the other limbic system. Later discoveries also indicate that only the most advanced mammals, like humans, possess the neo-mammalian brain.

Late discoveries by scientists show that the brainstem of all vertebrates shared an insightful degree of likeness. Conversely, the telencephalon and the thalamus portrayed little similarities between mammals and non-mammalian vertebrates. The outcome of this discovery is that the forebrain of most non-mammalian vertebrates associates close to the olfactory involvements (Olkowicz et al., 2016). Early developments assumed that the forebrain, especially the cortex, was exceptional to mammals. The scientists believed that no structure in the non-mammalian forebrain could compare to the mammalian cortex.

Scholars discovered that forebrain controlled complex operatives such as auditory recognition, visual stereopsis, and deciphering complex somatosensory contributions. The above-mentioned complex functions refer to the cognitive operations of the brain. Scientists found it challenging to explain how a non-mammalian creature could perform these complex functions, yet they lacked modal-specific thalamic nuclei and cortical regions. Scientists consider the sensory relay nuclei of the thalamus and the neocortex of the telencephalon as unique to the mammalian brain structure (Puelles, 2018). The scientists believe the encephalon of non-mammalian vertebrates to comprise primarily of olfactory centers and basal ganglia. Most birds with huge tencephalae possess inadequate, or no olfactory prowess, especially when equated with most non-avian mammals and reptiles.

The Current Avian Brain

Early discoveries contained little information concerning the uniqueness of mammals with individual thalamus and neocortex. The current linkage of the thalamus in avian brains, their prognoses upon the telencephalon, and the several separate populations of the telencephalon (that previous researchers had ignored) provide an insight into the capabilities of some birds to perform these functions (Puelles, 2018). Previous research concentrated on discovering the associations of the complex functions of the brain, especially the degree of the thalamus and telencephalon, to cats, monkeys, and rats.

Current research indicates that birds show highly sophisticated and superior skills in the cognitive presentation. Birds' auditory and visual models can control complex motor behaviors similar to skills apes display (Olkowicz et al., 2016). The current discovery suggests that despite the lack of conspicuous lamination, an attribute of the mammalian neocortex, the avian brain has nuclear collections primarily to lamina-specific populaces of mammalian neocortex. Current discoveries indicate that significant components found in mammals, such as the mammalian telencephalon, including the cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and striatal complex, corresponds to cell clusters in birds.

Conclusion

Recent research findings have refuted assertions of homology to mammalian brain frames that initially hindered operational linkage between the mammalian and the avian brain. Current research has shown that birds have a high intellectual capacity, even though their minds are small. Birds such as parrots and corvids possess cognitive prowess associated with mammals. The cognitive competency of birds is as a result of several neurons in their tiny brains. The forebrain of the avian species contains the neurons. Scientist suggests that the forebrain of avian birds, such as large corvids and parrots, have the same or more forebrain neurons as apes. The avian brain, therefore, can offer a higher cognitive ability per unit mass than most mammalian brains.

References

Karten, H. J. (2015). Vertebrate brains and evolutionary connectomics: on the origins of the mammalian 'neocortex'. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1684), 20150060. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2015.0060

Kirsch, J. A., Gunturkun, O., & Rose, J. (2008). Insight without cortex: lessons from the avian brain. Consciousness and cognition, 17(2), 475-483. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810008000470

Medina, L., Abellan, A., & Desfilis, E. (2017). Contribution of genoarchitecture to understanding hippocampal evolution and development. Brain, behavior and evolution, 90(1), 25-40. https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/477558

Medina, L., & Reiner, A. (2000). Do birds possess homologues of mammalian primary visual, somatosensory and motor cortices? Trends in neurosciences, 23(1), 1-12. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166223699014861

Olkowicz, S., Kocourek, M., Lucan, R. K., Portes, M., Fitch, W. T., Herculano-Houzel, S., & Nemec, P. (2016). Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(26), 7255-7260. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/26/7255.short

Puelles, L. (2018). Developmental studies of avian brain organization. Int. J. Dev. Biol, 62, 207-224. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luis_Puelles/publication/324225455_Developmental_studies_of_avian_brain_organization/links/5b75467a299bf14c6da917e5/Developmental-studies-of-avian-brain-organization.pdf

Reiner, A., Perkel, D. J., Mello, C. V., & Jarvis, E. D. (2004). Songbirds and the revised avian brain nomenclature. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1016, 77. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2481519/

Reiter, S., Liaw, H. P., Yamawaki, T. M., Naumann, R. K., & Laurent, G. (2017). On the value of reptilian brains to map the evolution of the hippocampal formation. Brain, behavior and evolution, 90(1), 41-52. https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/478693

Shimizu, T., & Bowers, A. N. (1999). Visual circuits of the avian telencephalon: evolutionary implications. Behavioral brain research, 98(2), 183-191. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432898000837