ABSTRACT
Three-dimensional angular head movements as well as horizontal angular movements of eye and trunk were recorded with the use of the magnetic search coil technique in spontaneously behaving rabbits during the first postnatal month. The period after postnatal eye opening (postnatal days 12–20) was characterized by the occurrence of horizontal head saccades and by an increasing stabilization of head orientation in the horizontal plane during active movements. After the third postnatal week, the rabbits began to scan objects of interest by large vertical head movements. In conformity with Donders’ law, three-dimensional head orientations appeared to be constrained to a curved surface at the end of the fourth postnatal week.
