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. 
Clancy, B. M., Theriault, B. R., Turcios, R. et al. 2023. The effect of noise, vibration, and light disturbances from daily health checks on breeding performance, nest building, and corticosterone in mice. JAALAS 62(4), 291–302.

At our institution, the techniques that technicians use for health checks vary for mice housed in cages on individually ventilated caging (IVC) racks. If the mice cannot be adequately visualized, some technicians partially undock the...

Lambert, H., Elwin, A., D’Cruze, N. 2022. Frog in the well: A review of the scientific literature for evidence of amphibian sentience. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 247, 105559.

Millions of amphibians are traded annually around the world for the exotic pet industry. Their experience during both trade, and in captivity as pets, leads to numerous animal welfare issues. The poor welfare of many...

Nguyen, T. T. H., Nguyen, T. M. D. 2022. Non-invasive assessment of physiological stress in captive common palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) in Vietnam. Journal of Animal Behaviour and Biometeorology 10(2), 2219.

Common Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) is a rare mammal appearing in South and Southeast Asia, first described in 1777. Because of the detrimental effects of stress, studying stress responses is important for this wildlife conservation...

Stephenson, E., Haskell, M. J. 2022. The use of a “go/go” cognitive bias task and response to a novel object to assess the effect of housing enrichment in sheep (Ovis aries). Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 25(1), 62-74.

It is widely acknowledged that environmental enrichment can improve animals’ welfare and emotional state. This study used cognitive bias and response to a novel object to assess the effect of enriched housing on emotional state...

Buckmaster, C. L., Levesque, D., LaFollette, M. et al. 2022. Five hot topics in refinement of nonhuman primate neuroscience research. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 10(1) (January/February), 24-26.

Members of the North American 3Rs Collaborative (NA3RsC) refinement initiative have chosen to summarize developments in five hot topics of interest: 1. Tips for welfare-friendly transport, chairing, and restraint; 2. Guidance on refining food and...

Berke, M. S., Fensholdt, L. K. D., Hestehave, S. et al. 2022. Effects of buprenorphine on model development in an adjuvant-induced monoarthritis rat model. PLOS ONE 17(1), e0260356.

Complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA)-induced arthritis in rats is a common animal model for studying chronic inflammatory pain. However, modelling of the disease is associated with unnecessary pain and impaired animal wellbeing, particularly in the immediate...

Hirata, S. 2022. Sky after 30 years: A brief biography of three biomedical research chimpanzees in Japan. Primates 63(2), 105–108.

This article describes the strategies employed by Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan to integrate 3 retired chimpanzees – who each spent 30 years singly housed in a biomedical facility – with the sanctuary’s other residents.

Guillaumin, A., Vlcek, B., Wallén-Mackenzie, Å. 2022. Improving well-being and survival in the 6-OHDA lesion model of Parkinson´s disease in mice: Literature review and step-by-step protocol. Scandinavian Journal of Animal Science 48(1), 1-21.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative motor disorder and primarily affects movement control but also a range of non-motor functions. With unknown etiology and lack of cure, much research is dedicated to unravel...

Zapata Cardona, J., Ceballos, M. C., Tarazona Morales, A. M. et al. 2022. Music modulates emotional responses in growing pigs. Scientific Reports 12(1), 3382.

There is a lack of clarity on whether pigs can emotionally respond to musical stimulation and whether that response is related to music structure. Qualitative Behavioral Assessment (QBA) was used to evaluate effects of 16...

Zhang, J., Yu, L., Yin, G. 2022. Evaluation of behavior and affective state of different-parity sows with strong/weak pupil light reflex. Animals 12(9), 1184.

The stall-housing system is commonly used in the modern swine industry in many countries; however, long-term space restrictions can cause affective and physiological abnormalities in sows. The pupil light reflex (PLR) can reflect the psychological...

Deacon, F., Daffue, W., Nel, P. 2022. Effective field immobilisation and capture of giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis). Animals 12(10), 1290.

One of the highest occurrences of mortalities among giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) takes place during immobilisations, captures and translocations. Common mistakes, human error, unforeseen risks, the awkward anatomy and the sheer size of the animal are...

Johansson, Ö, Kachel, S., Weckworth, B. 2022. Guidelines for telemetry studies on snow leopards. Animals 12(13), 1663.

Animal-borne tracking devices have generated a wealth of new knowledge, allowing us to better understand, manage and conserve species. Fitting such tracking devices requires that animals are captured and often chemically immobilized. Such procedures cause...

Knaebe, B., Weiss, C. C., Zimmermann, J. et al. 2022. The promise of behavioral tracking systems for advancing primate animal welfare. Animals 12(13), 1648.

Recent years have witnessed major advances in the ability of computerized systems to track the positions of animals as they move through large and unconstrained environments. These systems have so far been a great boon...

Fehrenbach, L. A., Adekanye, A. A., Palillo, M. B. et al. 2022. Internal temperatures of packaging for overnight cross-country shipping of zebrafish (Danio rerio). Comparative Medicine 72(3), 195-203.

As the use of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a research model continues to rise, so too will the shipping and sharing of zebrafish strains across collaborating institutions. If done incorrectly, shipping can result in significant...

Fares, R., Flénet, T., Vial, J. et al. 2022. Non invasive jacketed telemetry in socially-housed rats for a combined assessment of respiratory system, electrocardiogram and activity using the DECRO system. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 117, 107195.

Respiratory and cardiovascular systems are among the vital organ systems that should be studied in safety pharmacology core battery test. Non-invasive jacketed external telemetry technology that enables concomitant monitoring of both systems has been available...

Schnaider, M. A., Heidemann, M. S., Silva, A. H. P. et al. 2022. Vocalization and other behaviors as indicators of emotional valence: The case of cow-calf separation and reunion in beef cattle. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 49, 28-35.

Vocalization may communicate the emotional state in vocal animals. We aimed to describe and compare vocalization and other behavioral signs of cow-calf pairs in emotionally negative and positive situations, and the potential influence of genetic...

Schnaider, M. A., Heidemann, M. S., Silva, A. H. P. et al. 2022. Cat vocalization in aversive and pleasant situations. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 55-56, 71-78.

Vocalization may transmit information from the emitting animal, including information about his or her emotional state. This study aimed to compare the vocal and the behavioral responses of domestic cats during an aversive and a...

Van Assche, I. A., Padilla, M. S., Stupart, O. S. R. P. et al. 2022. Refinement of the stress-enhanced fear learning model of post-traumatic stress disorder: A behavioral and molecular analysis. Lab Animal 51(11), 293-300.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental health condition for which current treatments have long-term efficacy in 50% of patients. There is a clear need for better understanding of the mechanisms underlying PTSD and...

Zevnik, B., Jerchow, B., Buch, T. 2022. 3R measures in facilities for the production of genetically modified rodents. Lab Animal 51(6), 162-177.

Sociocultural changes in the human–animal relationship have led to increasing demands for animal welfare in biomedical research. The 3R concept is the basis for bringing this demand into practice: Replace animal experiments with alternatives where...

Hughey, S., Campbell, D., Rapp-Santos, K. et al. 2022. Refining the rat sciatic nerve block: A novel ultrasound-guided technique. Laboratory Animals 56(2), 191-195.

Murine translational models are an important tool to understand pain pathophysiology. One procedure used frequently in murine research is the sciatic nerve block. This study sought to demonstrate the use of ultrasound-guided sciatic nerve block...

Allioux, C., Achaintre, L., Cheataini. F. et al. 2022. Animal welfare assessment after severe traumatic brain injury in rats. Laboratory Animals 56(6), 528-539.

Severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a multifactorial injury process involving respiratory, cardiovascular and immune functions in addition to the brain. Thus, live animal models are needed to study the molecular, cellular and systemic mechanisms...

Khalajzeyqami, Z., Grandi, A., Ferrini, E. et al. 2022. Pivotal role of micro-CT technology in setting up an optimized lung fibrosis mouse model for drug screening. PLOS ONE 17(6), e0270005.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive disease with no curative pharmacological treatment. The most used animal model of IPF for anti-fibrotic drug screening is bleomycin (BLM)-induced lung fibrosis. However, several issues have been reported...

Houstin, A., Zitterbart, D. P., Winterl, A. et al. 2022. Biologging of emperor penguins—Attachment techniques and associated deployment performance. PLOS ONE 17(8), e0265849.

An increasing number of marine animals are equipped with biologgers, to study their physiology, behaviour and ecology, often for conservation purposes. To minimise the impacts of biologgers on the animals’ welfare, the Refinement principle from...

MacLellan, A., Nazal, B., Young et al. 2022. Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: Investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states. Royal Society Open Science 9(11), 221083.

Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one...

Novak, J., Jaric, I., Rosso, M. et al. 2022. Handling method affects measures of anxiety, but not chronic stress in mice. Scientific Reports 12(1), 20938.

Studies in mice have shown that less aversive handling methods (e.g. tunnel or cup handling) can reduce behavioural measures of anxiety in comparison to picking mice up by their tail. Despite such evidence, tail handling...