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. 
Golledge, H., Richardson, C. (Eds.) 2024. The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other Research Animals (9th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. 1040 p.

The latest edition of the seminal reference on the care and management of laboratory and research animals. The newly revised ninth edition of The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other...

Jessica, C.-G., Buendía-González, L., Ruiz-Gómez, M. L. et al. 2024. A minimally invasive procedure for blood extraction from Xenopus laevis allows follow up studies without euthanasia. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 27(1), 192–199.

Blood extraction is extremely important for the development of scientific research; however, the existing methods for amphibian´s blood sampling are invasive, mainly leading to the euthanasia of the animal. Therefore, less intrusive methods that allow...

Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Ausderau, K. K., Colman, R. J., Kabakov, S. et al. 2023. Evaluating depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in non-human primates. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1006065.

Depression and anxiety are some of the most prevalent and debilitating mental health conditions in humans. They can present on their own or as co-morbidities with other disorders. Like humans, non-human primates (NHPs) can develop...

Bozzay, J. D., Walker, P. F., Atwood, R. E. et al. 2023. Development, refinement, and characterization of a nonhuman primate critical care environment. PLOS ONE 18(3), e0281548.

Systemic inflammatory response remains a poorly understood cause of morbidity and mortality after traumatic injury. Recent nonhuman primate (NHP) trauma models have been used to characterize the systemic response to trauma, but none have incorporated...

Brando, S., Vitale, A., Bacon, M. 2023. Promoting good nonhuman primate welfare outside regular working hours. Animals 13(8), 1423.

Promoting good primate welfare outside of daylight hours is an important task. The responsibility to provide a complex environment and environmental enrichment is an essential element of primate wellbeing programs that should be approached from...

Casalini, A., Gentile, L., Emmanuele, P. et al. 2023. Effects of environmental enrichment on the behavior of Octopus vulgaris in a recirculating aquaculture system. Animals 13(11), 1862.

Octopus vulgaris is a commercially valuable species. It is overexploited in the natural environment and is considered to be an innovative species for aquaculture. However, large-scale farming is generally designed only based on economic requirements...

Crump, A., Gibbons, M., Barrett, M. et al. 2023. Is it time for insect researchers to consider their subjects’ welfare? PLOS Biology 21(6), e3002138.

Recent evidence suggests that at least some insect species might plausibly feel pain. These findings should prompt researchers to think about the welfare implications of insect experiments.

Pedrazzani, A. S., Cozer, N., Quintiliano, M. H. et al. 2023. Non-invasive methods for assessing the welfare of farmed white-leg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei). Animals 13(5), 807.

Gradually, concern for the welfare of aquatic invertebrates produced on a commercial/industrial scale is crossing the boundaries of science and becoming a demand of other societal actors. The objective of this paper is to propose...

Warwick, C., Pilny, A., Steedman, C. et al. 2023. Mobile zoos and other itinerant animal handling events: Current status and recommendations for future policies. Animals 13(2), 214.

Mobile zoos are events in which non-domesticated (exotic) and domesticated species are transported to venues such as schools, hospitals, parties, and community centres, for the purposes of education, entertainment, or social and therapeutic assistance. We...

Williams, E., Hunton, V., Hosey, G. et al. 2023. The impact of visitors on non-primate species in zoos: A quantitative review. Animals 13(7), 1178.

Visitors are a prominent feature in the lives of zoo animals, and their presence can cause a range of impacts on zoo animals (typically classed as positive, negative or neutral impacts), commonly referred to as...

Fischer, B., Barrett, M., Adcock, S. et al. 2023. Guidelines for protecting and promoting insect welfare in research. Insect Welfare Research Society.

These guidelines were developed by the leadership of the Insect Welfare Research Society (IWRS). They are intended to provide guidance to individuals researching insects, in laboratory, field, education, and industry contexts. The guidelines are informed...

Hammer, R., Stribos, M. S., Boehm, P. M. et al. 2023. A novel methodological approach for group classification during fission of a semi-free-ranging group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). American Journal of Primatology 85(2), e23463.

The self-initiated split of a social group, known as fission, is a challenge faced by many group-living animals. The study of group fission and the social restructuring process in real time provides insights into the...

Higham, J. P., Cooper, E. B., Whalen, C. et al. 2023. Urinary cytokine measurements do not reflect surgery-induced inflammation in rhesus macaques. American Journal of Primatology 85(8), e23506.

Measurement of the health and disease status of free-ranging primates is often limited by a lack of available biomarkers of immune activation and inflammation that can be applied noninvasively via the measurement of urine or...

O’Brien, S. L., Cronin, K. A. 2023. Doing better for understudied species: Evaluation and improvement of a species-general animal welfare assessment tool for zoos. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 264, 105965.

Accredited zoos and aquariums are required to have a welfare assessment process in place for the animals in their care. However, welfare assessment theoretical frameworks and methodologies vary widely. Previous studies have shown that taxonomic...

Luisi, B., Micheletta, J., Julle-Danière, E. et al. 2023. Monkeying around: Non-human primate behavioural responses to humans reproducing their facial expressions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 265, 105990.

People are often observed mimicking animals’ facial expressions in an attempt to communicate with them. However, to date, there is limited understanding of how animals respond to humans reproducing their facial displays, or if this...

Kondrashev, S. L. 2023. Trichromatic vision in toads: Evidence from preference for colour objects during mate choice. Behaviour 160(8), 753–784.

Input of different spectral types of photoreceptors in amphibian colour vision has been assessed by studying the behaviour of male toads Bufo bufo and B. gargarizans in a laboratory. This method is based on the...

Hansmeyer, L., Yurt, P., Agha, N. et al. 2023. Home-enclosure-based behavioral and wireless neural recording setup for unrestrained rhesus macaques. ENeuro 10(1) ENEURO.0285-22.2022.

Electrophysiological studies with behaving nonhuman primates often require the separation of animals from their social group as well as partial movement restraint to perform well-controlled experiments. When the research goal per se does not mandate...

Jain, A. K., Tansey, G., Hartig, R. et al. 2023. Trends and treatment approaches for complications in neuroscience experiments with monkey species. Comparative Medicine 73(3), 216–228.

Our goal in this manuscript is to advance the assessment and treatment of monkey species in neuroscience research. We hope to begin a discussion and establish baseline data on how complications are identified and treated...

Chakravarty, S., Donoghue, J., Waite, A. S. et al. 2023. Closed-loop control of anesthetic state in nonhuman primates. PNAS Nexus 2(10), 293.

Research in human volunteers and surgical patients has shown that unconsciousness under general anesthesia can be reliably tracked using real-time electroencephalogram processing. Hence, a closed-loop anesthesia delivery (CLAD) system that maintains precisely specified levels of...

Andrade, M. P., Santos, C. M. D., De Paiva, M. M. M. et al. 2023. Assessing negative welfare measures for wild invertebrates: The case for octopuses. Animals 13(19), 3021.

Welfare metrics have been established for octopuses in the laboratory, but not for octopuses living in the wild. Wild octopuses are constantly exposed to potentially harmful situations, and the ability to assess the welfare status...

Bertrand, D. A., Berman, C. M., Heistermann, M. et al. 2023. Effects of tourist and researcher presence on fecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels in wild, habituated Sulawesi crested macaques (Macaca nigra). Animals 13(18), 2842.

Ecotourism managers and researchers often assume that apparently habituated primate groups no longer experience adverse consequences of prolonged exposure to tourists or researchers. We examined the effects of tourists and researchers on fecal glucocorticoid metabolite...

Brando, S., Norman, M. 2023. Handling and training of wild animals: Evidence and ethics-based approaches and best practices in the modern zoo. Animals 13(14), 2247.

There is an ethical responsibility to provide all animals living in human care with optimal and positive well-being. As animals living in zoos and aquariums frequently interact with their human caregivers as part of their...

Calapai, A., Pfefferle, D., Cassidy, L. C. et al. 2023. A touchscreen-based, multiple-choice approach to cognitive enrichment of captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Animals 13(17), 2702.

Research on the psychological and physiological well-being of captive animals has focused on investigating different types of social and structural enrichment. Consequently, cognitive enrichment has been understudied, despite the promising external validity, comparability, and applicability...

Clark, F. E. 2023. In the zone: Towards a comparative study of flow state in primates. Animal Behavior and Cognition 10(1), 62–88.

Flow is an altered state of feeling ‘in the zone’ when fully absorbed in a challenge and is associated with positive affective state (feelings). Despite almost five decades of research, Flow has not yet been...