Time course of postnatal motor development in ferrets: ontogenetic and comparative perspectives

We assess relative time courses of motor development in ferrets and rats and evaluate ferrets as experimental animals for studies of motor development. Motor behaviour of ferret pups was characterized in daily sessions from postnatal day (P) 2 to P63. Observations concerning rotational locomotion ('pivoting'), crawling, walking, upright standing ('rearing') and walking on a narrow path; righting on a surface, in mid-air and on an inclined plane ('geotaxis') were quantified in detail and compared with published data on rat motor development. Besides providing a comprehensive characterization of ferret motor development, our results demonstrate that relative time courses of emergence of motor skills in ferrets and rats are highly similar despite substantially different duration of postnatal periods. The relationship between species was determined by linear regression analysis of an x-y-plot of postnatal ages (y: ferret days; x: rat days) corresponding to given levels of performance of specific skills. The model equation y = 2.46x-4.18 represents the conversion between time courses of rat and ferret motor development. Remarkably, the model explained 81% of data variance (r2 = 0.81) and should hence be useful for translation of motor developmental data between ferret and rat and for comparisons between motor and other functions in ferrets. The highly conserved relative time course also has more general implications for the understanding of comparative aspects of development. In addition, the high reproducibility of data within the present study underscores the suitability of the ferret as an experimental animal for studies of motor development.