Publications

• Rosa-Salva, O., Vallortigara, G. (2025). Monocular occlusion in birds In “Lateralized Brain Functions”, eds. L.J. Rogers, G. Vallortigara,  129-146, Springer N.Y.
• Cavallari, E., Bifone, A., Vallortigara, G., Lorenzi, E. (2025). Imaging embryonic brain lateralization in the chick. In “Lateralized Brain Functions”, eds. L.J. Rogers, G. Vallortigara, pp 439-459, Springer, N.Y.

Kobylkov, D., Rosa-Salva, O., Zanon, M., & Vallortigara, G. (2024). Innate face-selectivity in the brain of young domestic chicks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(40), e2410404121

Carollo, A., Lim, M., Vallortigara, G. (2024). The Evolution of Developmental Psychology: An Ethologist’s Insight. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2024.2390446 

Lorenzi, E., Perrino, M. Messina, A., Zanon, M., Vallortigara, G. (2024). Innate responses to numerousness reveal neural activation in different brain regions in newly-hatched visually naïve chicks. Heliyon, Vol. 10, Issue 14, E34162, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e34162

Adam, E., Zanon, M., Messina, A., Vallortigara, G. (2024). Looks like home: Numerosity, but not spatial frequency guides preference in zebrafish larvae (Danio rerio). Animal Cognition, 27:53 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-024-01888-0

Lorenzi, E., Nadalin, G., Morandi-Raikova, A., Mayer, U., Vallortigara, G. (2024). Non-cortical coding of biological motion in newborn chicks’ brain. Cerebral Cortex, Volume 34, Issue 6, June 2024, bhae262, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae262

Vallortigara, G., Vitiello, G. (2024). Brain asymmetry as minimization of free energy: A theoretical model. Royal Society Open Science, 11: 240465.https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.240465

Kobylkov, D., Vallortigara, G. (2024) Face detection mechanisms: Nature vs. nurture. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 18:1404174. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1404174

Costalunga, G., Kobylkov, D., Rosa-Salva, O., Morandi-Raikova, A., Vallortigara, G., Mayer, U. (2024). Responses of the left and right entopallium are differently affected by light stimulation in embryo. iScience, Volume 27, Issue 3,109268, ISSN 2589-0042, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.109268

Morandi-Raikova A, Rosa-Salva O, Simdianova A, Vallortigara G, Mayer U. (2024). Hierarchical processing of feature, egocentric and relational information for spatial orientation in domestic chicks. Journal of Experimental Biology, Feb 7: jeb.246447. doi: 10.1242/jeb.246447. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38323420.

Matsushima, T., Izumi, T., Vallortigara, G. (2024). The domestic chick as an animal model of autism spectrum disorder: Building adaptive social perceptions through prenatally formed predispositions. Frontiers in Neuroscience, in press. 10.3389/fnins.2024.1279947 

Zanon, M., Lemaire, B.S., Papeo, L., Vallortigara, G. (2024). Innate sensitivity to face-to-face biological motion. iScience, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.108793

Vallortigara, G. (2024). Core knowledge as a neuro-ethologist views it. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 47: e144. doi:10.1017/s0140525x23003035

Lemaire B.S, Zanon, M., Placì, S., Werk, B., Vallortigara, G. (2023). Flickering stimuli presentation in imprinting. Journal of Ornithology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-023-02110-7

Bortot, M., Vallortigara, G. (2023. Transfer from continuous to discrete quantities in honeybees. iScience, 26, 108035, https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.isci.2023.108035

Lorenzi, E., Tambalo, S., Vallortigara, G., Bifone, A. (2023). Manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging reveals light-induced brain asymmetry in embryo. eLife, 12: e86116, https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.86116

Kobylkov, D., Zanon, M., Perrino, M., Vallortigara, G. (2023). Neural coding of numerousness. BioSystems, 232,104999, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.104999.

Rosa-Salva O., Hernik, M., Fabbroni, M., Lorenzi, E., Vallortigara, G. (2023). Naïve chicks do not prefer objects with stable body orientation, though they may prefer behavioural variability. Animal Cognition, 26: 1177–1189 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-023-01764-3

Tonello L and Vallortigara G (2023) Evolutionary models of lateralization: Steps toward stigmergy? Front. Behav. Neurosci. 17:1121335. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1121335

Torres-Pérez, J.V., Anagianni, S., Mech, A.M., Havelange, W., García-González, J., Fraser, S.E., Vallortigara, G., Brennan, C.H. (2023). baz1b loss of function produces phenotypic alterations in zebrafish consistent with the domestication syndrome. iScience, Volume 26, Issue 1,105704, ISSN 2589-0042, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.105704.

Lemaire, B., Vallortigara, G. (2023). Life is in motion (through a chick's eye). Animal Cognition, 26: 129-140. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01703-8

Kartsch, V.J.; Kumaravel, V.P.; Benatti, S.; Vallortigara, G.; Benini, L.; Farella, E.; Buiatti, M. Efficient Low-Frequency SSVEP Detection with Wearable EEG Using Normalized Canonical Correlation Analysis. Sensors 2022, 22, 9803. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22249803

Torres-Pérez, J.V., Anagianni, S., Mech, A.M., Havelange, W., García-González, J., Fraser, S.E., Vallortigara, G., Brennan, C.H. (2022). baz1b loss of function produces phenotypic alterations in zebrafish consistent with the domestication syndrome. iScience, in press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.105704

Lemaire, B., Rosa-Salva, O., Fraja, M., Lorenzi, E., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Spontaneous preference for unpredictability in the temporal contingencies between agents’ motion in naïve domestic chicks. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1622

Matsushima, T., Miura, M., Patzke, N., Toji, N., Wada, K.Ogura, Y., Homma, K.J., Sgadò, P., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Fetal blockade of nicotinic acetylcholine transmission causes autism-like impairment of biological motion preference in the neonatal chick. Cerebral Cortex Communications, tgac041, https://doi.org/10.1093/texcom/tgac04z

Lemaire, B., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Life is in motion (through a chick's eye). Animal Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01703-8

Kobylkov, D., Mayer, U., Zanon, M., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Number neurons in the nidopallium of young domestic chicks. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 119 (32) e2201039119 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2201039119

Messina A, Potrich D, Perrino M, Sheardown E, Miletto Petrazzini ME, Luu P, Nadtochiy A, Truong TV, Sovrano VA, Fraser SE, Brennan CH and Vallortigara G (2022) Quantity as a Fish Views It: Behavior and Neurobiology. Front. Neuroanat. 16:943504. doi: 10.3389/fnana.2022.943504

Vallortigara, G., Lorenzi, E., Messina, A., & Perrino, M. (2022). Magnitudes for nervous systems: Theoretical issues and experimental evidence. Current Directions in Psychological Sciences, , 31(5), 405-410. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221102146

Versace, E., Sgadò, P., George, G., Loveland, J.L., Ward, J., Thorpe, P., Jensen, L.J., Spencer, K.A., Paracchini, S., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Light-induced asymmetries in embryonic retinal gene expression are mediated by the vascular system and extracellular matrix. Scientific Reports, 12, 12086 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14963-8

Szabó, E., Chiandetti, C., Téglás, E., Versace, E., Csibra, G., Kovács, A.M., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Young domestic chicks spontaneously represent the absence of objects. eLife 11:e67208. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67208

Potrich, D., Zanon, M., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Archerfish number discrimination. eLife 11:e74057. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74057

Sheardown, E, Torres-Perez, J. V., Anagianni, S., Fraser, S.E., Vallortigara, G., Butterworth, B., Miletto-Petrazzini, M.E., Brennan, C.H. (2022) Characterising ontogeny of quantity discrimination in zebrafish. Proceedings of Royal Society of London, B. 289: 2021254420212544 http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2544

Zanon, M., Potrich D., Bortot, M., Vallortigara, G. (2022). Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli. Behavior Research Methods, 54: 146–157. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01580-y

Prabhakar Kumaravel, V.P., Kartsch, V., Benatti, S., Vallortigara, G., Farella, E., Buiatti, M. (2021). Efficient Artifact Removal from Low-Density Wearable EEG using Artifacts Subspace Reconstruction. Proceedings of 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC), pp. 333-336. doi: 10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9629771.

Vallortigara, G. (2021). The efference copy signal as a key mechanism for consciousness. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 145 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2021.765646

Daisley, J., Vallortigara, G., Regolin, L. (2021). Low-rank chicks are better at transitive inference reasoning. Communications Biology, 4:1344https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02855-y

Lorenzi, E., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Evolutionary and Neural Bases of the Sense of Animacy. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Animal Cognition (Eds. Allison Kaufman, Josep Call, James Kaufman), pp. 295-321, Cambridge University Press, New York.

Messina, A., Potrich, D., Schiona, I., Sovrano, V.A., Vallortigara, G. (2021). The Sense of Number in Fish, with Particular Reference to Its Neurobiological Bases. Animals. 11(11):3072. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11113072

Di Giorgio, E., Rosa-Salva, O., Frasnelli, E., Calcagni, A., Lunghi, M., Scattoni, M.L., Simion, F., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Abnormal visual attention to simple social stimuli in 4-month-old infants at high risk for Autism. Scientific Reports, 11: 15785 (2021).

Di Giorgio, E., Rosa-Salva, O., Frasnelli, E., Calcagni, A., Lunghi, M., Scattoni, M.L., Simion, F., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Abnormal visual attention to simple social stimuli in 4-month-old infants at high risk for Autism. Scientific Reports, 11: 15785 (2021).

Zanon, M., Lemaire, B.S., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Steps towards a computational ethology: An automatized, interactive setup to investigate filial imprinting and biological predispositions. Biological Cybernetics

Messina, A., Potrich, D., Schiona, I., Sovrano, V.A., Fraser, S.E., Brennan, C.H., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Neurons in the dorso-central division of zebrafish pallium respond to change in visual numerosity. Cerebral Cortex, bhab218

Lemaire, B.S., Rucco, D., Josserand, M., Vallortigara, G., Versace, E. (2021). Stability and individual variability of social attachment in imprinting. Scientific Reports 11: 7914

Loconsole, M., Mascalzoni, E., Daisley, J.N., De Agrò, M., Vallortigara, G., Regolin, L. (2021). Lateralized declarative-like memory for conditional spatial information in domestic chicks (Gallus gallus). Symmetry, 13, 906

Lorenzi, E., Lemaire, B. S., Versace, E., Matsushima, T., & Vallortigara, G. (2021). Resurgence of an inborn attraction for animate objects via thyroid hormone T3. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 15, 72

Lorenzi, E., Perrino, M., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Numerosities and other magnitudes in the brains: A comparative view. Frontiers in Psychology - Cognition, 12:641994.

Zanon, M., Potrich, D., Bortot, M., & Vallortigara, G. (2021). Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli. Behavior Research Methods, 1-12.

Montalbán-Loro, R., Lassi, G., Lozano-Ureña, A., Perez-Villalba, A., Jiménez-Villalba, E., Charalambous, M., Vallortigara, G., Horner, A., Saksida, L., Bussey, T., Luis Trejo, J., Tucci, V., Ferguson-Smith, A.C., Ferrón, S.R. (2021). Dlk1 dosage regulates hippocampal neurogenesis and cognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(11).

Di Giorgio, E., Lunghi, M., Vallortigara, G., Simion, F. (2021). Newborns’ sensitivity to speed changes as a building block for animacy perception. Scientific Reports, 11, 542 (2021)

Costalunga G, Kobylkov D, Rosa-Salva O, Vallortigara G, Mayer U. (2021). Light-incubation effects on lateralisation of single unit responses in the visual Wulst of domestic chicks. Brain Structure and Function

Vallortigara, G. (2021). Animacy detection and its role on our attitudes towards other species. In "Human/Animal Relationships in Transformation. Scientific, Moral and Legal Perspectives" (S. Pollo, A. Vitale, eds.), Palgrave.

Lemaire, B.S., Rugani, R., Regolin, L., Vallortigara, G. (2020). Response of male and female domestic chicks to change in the number (quantity) of imprinting objects. Learning & Behavior

Messina A, Boiti A, Sovrano VA, Sgadò P. Micromolar Valproic Acid Doses Preserve Survival and Induce Molecular Alterations in Neurodevelopmental Genes in Two Strains of Zebrafish Larvae. Biomolecules. 2020 Sep 24;10(10):1364.

Lee, S.A., Austen, J.M., Sovrano, V.A., Vallortigara, G., McGregor, A., Lever, C. (2020). Distinct and combined responses to environmental geometry and features in a working-memory reorientation task in rats and chicks. Scientific Reports, 10, 7508

Vallortigara, G. (2020). Lessons from miniature brains: Cognition cheap, memory expensive (sentience linked to active movement?). Animal Sentience, 29 (17).

Rugani, R., Vallortigara, G., Priftis, K., Regolin, L. (2020). Numerical magnitude, rather than individual bias, explains spatial numerical association in newborn chicks. eLife, 9: e54662

Bortot, M., Stancher, G., Vallortigara, G. (2020). Transfer from number to size reveals abstract coding of magnitude in honeybees. iScience, 23: 101122

Messina, A., Potrich, D., Schiona, I., Sovrano, V.A., Fraser, S.E., Brennan, C.H., Vallortigara, G. (2020). Response to change in the number of visual stimuli in zebrafish: A behavioural and molecular study. Scientific Reports, 10: 5769

Miletto Petrazzini, M.E., Sovrano, V.A., Vallortigara, G., Messina, A. (2020). Brain and behavioral asymmetry: A lesson from fish. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, 14: 11.