Refinement Database

Database on Refinement of Housing, Husbandry, Care, and Use of Animals in Research

This database, created in 2000, is updated every four months with newly published scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research.

Tips for using the database:

  • This landing page displays all of the publications in the database.
  • Use the drop-down menus to filter these publications by Animal Type, Setting, and/or Topic.
  • Clicking on a parent category (e.g., Rodent) will include publications relating to all the items in that category (e.g., Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, etc.).
  • You may also add a keyword to further narrow your search.
  • Please note that at this time, only publications dated 2010 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Animal Type and Topic, and only publications dated 2020 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Setting. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Weininger, O. 1954. Physiological damage under emotional stress as a function of early experience. Science 119, 285-286.

Mal rats, gentled daily post-weaning from day 23 to 44, showed a mean number of stomach bleeding points of 1.0 when stressed when 79 days old. Non-gentled animals had a mean number of 7.9 bleeding...

Kagan, J., Berkun, M. 1954. The reward value of running activity. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 47, 108.
Eayrs, J. T. 1954. Spontaneous activity in the rat. Animal Behaviour 2, 25-30.

Rats obviously prefer running wheels over tunnels: Subjects ran more than 6 km/ 24 h in a running wheel but only less then 0.2 km in a circular tunnel run.

Fredericson, E. 1953. The wall-seeking tendency in three inbred mouse strains (Mus musculus). Journal of Genetic Psychology 82, 143-146.
Hauschka, T. S. 1952. Whisker-eating mice. Journal of Heredity 43, 77-80.

In all three cages dominance of one whisker eater over the other could be diagnosed within 24 hours. ... Hairs were eaten but not digested.

Belschner, H. G. 1962. Sheep Management and Diseases, 7th Edition. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, Australia.

Sheep have excellent long-term memory, especially of aversive situations.

Muhlbock, O. 1951. Influence of environment on mammary tumors in mice. Acta Unio Internationalis Contra Cancrum 7, 351-353.

Group-housed animals are less suceptible to develop mammary tumors than individually housed animals.

Bevan, W. Jr., Hard, J. S., Seal, U. S. 1951. Sound-induced seizures in rats fed an aminoacid deficient diet. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 44, 327-332.
Van Wagenen, G. 1950. The monkeys. In: The Care and Breeding of Laboratory Animals . Farris, E. J. (ed), 1-42. John Wiley, New York, NY.

Valuable observations regarding the space requirements of single-housed rhesus macaques. It is inconceivable that growing monkeys in the laboratory be denied their essential activities of swinging, jumping, and scampering about. This calls for space....

Goldfarb, A. I., Berman, S. 1949. Alcoholism as a psychosomatic disorder; endocrine pathology of animals and man excessively exposed to alcohol; its possible relation to behavioral pathology. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 10, 415-429.

Earliest reference to the term behavioral pathology.

Chance, M. R. A. 1947. Factors influencing the toxicity of sympathomimetic amines to solitary mice. Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology 89, 289-296.

A higher susceptibility to ephedrine was noticed in animal exposed to light intensity of 12 ft-c vs. 0.025 ft-c.

Scott, J. P. 1945. Social Behavior, Organization and Leadership in a Small Flock of Domestic Sheep - Comparative Psychology Monographs, Volume 18, Serial No.96. Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, MD.

Description of species-typical behavior of sheep.

Andervont, H. B. 1944. Influence of environment on mammary cancer in mice. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 4, 579-581.

Animal kept in groups are more resistant to spontaneously developing mammary tumors than animals caged individually.

Arsenian, J. M. 1943. Young children in an insecure situation. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38, 225-249.

Author demonstrated with preschool children that emotional stress induced by placing the child alone in a novel room is substantially reduced if a familiar adult is present.

King, C. G., Karn, H. W., Patton, R. A. 1941. Nutritional deficiency as a factor in the abnormal behavior of experimental animals. Science 94, 186.

earliest reference to the term abnormal behavior.

Spragg, S. D. S. 1940. Morphine addiction in chimpanzees. Comparative Psychology Monographs 15, 1-132.

Author provides formal description of training four unrestrained chimpanzees to approach an investigator and accept an injection of physiological saline solution. The training comprised a combination of adaptation, desensitization, and shaping, with fruit, praise, and...

Marshall, F. H. A. 1940. The experimental modification of the oestrous cycle in the ferret by different intensities of light irradiations and other methods. Journal of Experimental Biology 17, 139-147.

With female ferrets subjected to different degrees of intensity of light irradiation as measured by placing them at different distances from a 1000 W. lamp, the acceleration of the oestrous cycle, generally speaking, was correlated...

Barhal, H. S. 1940. The psychopathology of hair-plucking (trichotillomania). Psychoanalytical Review 17, 291-310.

The aggressive aspect of hair-pulling is emphasized.

DeBakey, M., Ochsner, A. 1938. Bezoars and concretions. Surgery 4, 934-963.

Some patients with trichotillomania ingest whole hairs or parts of hairs [trichophagia], leading in some cases to the development of trichobezoars. Surgical intervention is indicated.

Hall, C. S. 1936. Emotional behavior in the rat. II. The relationship between emotionality and ambulatory activity. Journal of Comparative Psychology 22, 345-352.
Hall, C. S. 1934. Emotional behavior in the rat: I. Defecation and urination as measures of individual differences in emotionality. Journal of Comparative Psychology 18, 385-403.

Proposes that measuring aspect of rat behavior in a contained arena indicates the emotional reactivity of the subjects. Specifically, both the number of fecal boli deposited and the activity patterns correlates with the levels of...

Hall, C. S., Ballachey, E. L. 1932. A study of the rat's behavior in a field: A contribution to method in comparative psychology. University of California Publications in Psychology 6, 1-12.

THE OPEN-FIELD (OF) TEST, originally developed by Hall (Hall & Ballachey, 1932), is one of the most widely used methods in the study of emotionality in rodents. The test is conducted in an enclosed open...

Yerkes, R. M. , Yerkes, A. W. 1929. The Great Apes. A Study of Anthropoid Life. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Review of feeding enrichment options specifically challenging the intelligence of nonhuman primates.

Tinklepaugh, O. L. 1928. The self-mutilation of a male rhesus monkey. Journal of Mammalogy 9, 293-300.

A drastic case of observer-induced self-biting of a male rhesus macaque is described.

Kohler, W. 1927. The Intelligence of Apes. Metheun, London, UK.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a chimpanzee kept in solitude is not a real chimpanzee at all.