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. 
Atkinson, J., Boden, T., Mocho J.-P. et al. 2021. Refining the unilateral ureteral obstruction mouse model: No sham, no shame. Laboratory Animals 55(1), 21-29.

Fibrosis, as a common final pathway in many renal diseases, contributes significantly to the decline of organ function and to progression to end-stage renal disease. To establish therapeutic interventions that target fibrosis, animal models are...

Justin, M., Jež, M., Košir, A. et al. 2021. Application of the 3R principles: Vertebrae as an additional source of murine bone-marrow cells. Laboratory Animals 55(1), 43-52.

Experimental murine models are an essential tool in the field of bone marrow (BM) transplantation research. Therefore, numerous mice are required to obtain a sufficient number of BM cells, which is in contrast with the...

Teixeira-Santos, L., Albino-Teixeira, A., Pinho, D. 2021. An alternative method for oral drug administration by voluntary intake in male and female mice. Laboratory Animals 55(1), 76-80.

Drug administration to experimental rodents is often invasive and stressful, thus reducing animal welfare and potentially confounding experimental results. Methods of oral drug delivery in which rodents cooperate voluntarily minimize stress, pain and morbidity. We herein...

Webb, L. 2021. Drip, drop…drip, drop – How do I make it stop? Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(2) (March/April), 36-38.

Whether you are an animal care/husbandry technician, facility manager, or veterinarian, everyone bemoans a leaky drinking valve (often referred to as a lixit). Leaking drinking valves and flooded cages are a fairly common problem when...

Owen, J. P., Kelsh, R. N. 2021. A suitable anaesthetic protocol for metamorphic zebrafish. PLOS ONE 16(3), e0246504.

Zebrafish are frequently used as a means to investigate development. These studies increasingly require repeated anaesthesia of zebrafish during juvenile (i.e. metamorphic) stages. The effects of anaesthesia during this time remain poorly studied. The aim...

Nonnis, S., Angiulli, E., Maffioli, E. et al. 2021. Acute environmental temperature variation affects brain protein expression, anxiety and explorative behaviour in adult zebrafish. Scientific Reports 11(1), 2521.

This study investigated the effect of 4-d acute thermal treatments at 18 °C, 26 °C (control) and 34 °C on the nervous system of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) using a multidisciplinary approach based on behavioural...

Carbone, L. 2021. Estimating mouse and rat use in American laboratories by extrapolation from Animal Welfare Act-regulated species. Scientific Reports 11(1), 493.

Alone among Western nations, the United States has a two-tier system for welfare protections for vertebrate animals in research. Because its Animal Welfare Act (AWA) excludes laboratory rats and mice (RM), government veterinarians do not...

Adcock, A., Choleris, E., Denommé, M. et al. 2021. Where are you from? Female mice raised in enriched or conventional cages differ socially, and can be discriminated by other mice. Behavioural Brain Research 400, 113025.

Laboratory rodents raised in environmentally-enriched (EE) cages differ behaviourally and cognitively from conventionally-housed (CH) animals. We hypothesised that mice can detect such differences, testing this using differentially-raised female C57BL/6 s as subjects, and differentially-raised female...

Krakenberg, V., Wewer,M., Palme, R. et al. 2021. Regular touchscreen training affects faecal corticosterone metabolites and anxiety-like behaviour in mice. Behavioural Brain Research 401, 113080.

Automated touchscreen techniques find increasing application for the assessment of cognitive function in rodents. However, hardly anything is known about the potential impact of touchscreen-based training and testing procedures on the animals under investigation. Addressing...

Marchetto, L., Barcellos, L. J. G., Koakoski, G. et al. 2021. Auditory environmental enrichment prevents anxiety-like behavior, but not cortisol responses, evoked by 24-h social isolation in zebrafish. Behavioural Brain Research 404, 113169.

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is widely used as a promising translational model organism for studying various brain disorders. Zebrafish are also commonly used in behavioral and drug screening assays utilizing individually tested (socially isolated) fish...

Berlinghieri, F., Panizzon, P., Penry-Williams, I. L. et al. 2021. Laterality and fish welfare - A review. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 236, 105239.

Humans interact with fishes in many contexts including aquaculture, scientific study and companion animals. In all of these contexts, fish welfare can be compromised through anthropogenic means. Concern for fish welfare has grown considerably in...

Coleman, K., Shapiro, S. J. (Eds.). 2021. Behavioral Biology of Laboratory Animals (1st ed). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

This 30-chapter volume informs students and professionals about the behavioral biology of animals commonly housed in laboratory and other captive settings. Each species evolved under specific environmental conditions, resulting in unique behavioral patterns, many of...

Sørensen, D., Cloutier, S., Gaskill, B. (Eds.). 2021. Animal-centric Care and Management - Enhancing Refinement in Biomedical Research. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

The concept of the 3Rs (Refinement, Reduction and Replacement) has been used as a framework for improving the welfare of laboratory animals for the last half century. By establishing an animal-centric view on housing and...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Smulders, T. V. et al. 2021. Report of the 2020 RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(1), 21-33.

The RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 27 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and share...

Lopez-Salesansky, N., Wells, D. J., Chancellor, N. et al. 2021. Handling mice using gloves sprayed with alcohol-based hand sanitiser: Acute effects on mouse behaviour. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(1), 11-20.

Alcohols are commonly used in laboratory animal facilities to disinfect hands, equipment and laboratory environments. The effect on mice is unknown, so we observed male and female C57BL/6J and BALB/c mice during and after handling...

Stevens, C. H., Reed, B. T., Hawkins, P. 2021. Enrichment for laboratory zebrafish—A review of the evidence and the challenges. Animals 11(3), 698.

Good practice for the housing and care of laboratory zebrafish Danio rerio is an increasingly discussed topic, with focus on appropriate water quality parameters, stocking densities, feeding regimes, anaesthesia and analgesia practices, methods of humane...

Whittaker, A. L., Liu, Y., Barker, T. H. 2021. Methods used and application of the mouse grimace scale in biomedical research 10 years on: A scoping review. Animals 11(3), 673.

The Mouse Grimace Scale (MGS) was developed 10 years ago as a method for assessing pain through the characterisation of changes in five facial features or action units. The strength of the technique is that...

Rácz, A., Allan, B., Dwyer, T. et al. 2021. Identification of individual zebrafish (Danio rerio): A refined protocol for VIE tagging whilst considering animal welfare and the principles of the 3Rs. Animals 11(3), 616.

In aquatic ecology, studies have commonly employed a tagging technique known as visible implant elastomer (VIE). This method has not been widely adopted by the zebrafish research community and also lacks refinement with regard to...

Giménez-Llort, L., Torres-Lista, V. 2021. Social nesting, animal welfare, and disease monitoring. Animals 11(4), 1079.

The assessment of welfare and disease progression in animal models is critical. Most tools rely on evaluating individual subjects, whereas social behaviors, also sensitive to acute illness, chronic diseases, or mental health, are scarcely monitored...

Kammertoens, T., Jeuthe, S., Baranzke, H. et al. 2021. Breeding and maintenance of immunodeficient mouse lines under SPF conditions—A call for individualized severity analyses and approval procedures. Animals 11(6), 1789.

In the EU, the breeding of genetically modified laboratory animals is, by definition, an animal experiment if the offspring may experience pain, suffering, or harm. In order to determine the actual burden of genetically modified...

Burn, C. C., Mazlan, N. H. B., Chancellor, N. et al. 2021. The pen is milder than the blade: Identification marking mice using ink on the tail appears more humane than ear-punching even with local anaesthetic. Animals 11(6), 1664.

Identification marking mice commonly involves ear-punching with or without anaesthetic, or tail-marking with ink. To identify which is most humane, we marked weanling male BALB/c mice using ear-punching (EP), ear-punching with anaesthetic EMLATM cream (EP+A)...

Manthey, T., Nagel-Riedasch, S., Dülsner, A. 2021. The interactive stress assessment in basic animal science training. Animals 11(7), 2145.

In order to assess the extent to which the legally prescribed training for the acquisition of animal experimentation expertise provides scientific personnel with the necessary competence and expertise to carry out a correct harm-benefit analysis...

van der Geest, J. N., Spoor, M., Frens, M. A. 2021. Environmental enrichment improves vestibular oculomotor learning in mice. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 15, 676416.

We assessed the behavioral effects of environmental enrichment on contrast sensitivity, reflexive eye movements and on oculomotor learning in mice that were housed in an enriched environment for a period of 3 weeks. Research has...

Wooden, J. I., Spinetta, M. J., Nguyen, T. et al. 2021. A sensitive homecage-based novel object recognition task for rodents. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 15, 680042.

The recognition of novel objects is a common cognitive test for rodents, but current paradigms have limitations, such as low sensitivity, possible odor confounds and stress due to being performed outside of the homecage. We...

Perea, C., Vázquez-Ágredos, A., Ruiz-Leyva, L. et al. 2021. Caloric restriction in group-housed mice: Littermate and sex influence on behavioral and hormonal data. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 639187.

Much of the research done on aging, oxidative stress, anxiety, and cognitive and social behavior in rodents has focused on caloric restriction (CR). This often involves several days of single housing, which can cause numerous...