Sleep and sleep regulation in the ferret (Mustela putorius furo)

We investigated sleep-wake (S-W) architecture and sleep regulation in the ferret: a phylogenetically primitive mammal increasingly used in neurobiological studies. Twenty-four hour S-W baseline data were collected in eight adult ferrets. Seven ferrets were then sleep deprived for 6h at the beginning of the light period. Like other placental mammals, ferrets exhibited the main vigilance states of wakefulness, rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep. Interestingly, the amount of REM sleep in the ferret was considerably higher (24.01+/-1.61% of total recording time) than typically reported in placental mammals. Ferret sleep was homeostatically regulated as sleep deprivation produced a significant increase in NREM EEG delta power during the recovery period. Therefore, ferret sleep in most respects is comparable to sleep in other placental mammals. However, the large amount of REM sleep in this phylogenetically more ancient species suggests that REM sleep may have been present in greater amounts in early stages of mammalian evolution.