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. 
Herlofson, E. A. G., Tavola, F., Engdahl, K. S. et al. 2023. Evaluation of primary wound healing and potential complications after perioperative infiltration with lidocaine without adrenaline in surgical incisions in dogs and cats. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 21.

Pre-emptive local analgesia with the use of lidocaine is practised increasingly in veterinary medicine as part of applied multimodal analgesia, despite its controversial impact on wound healing. The purpose of this prospective, randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled...

Malik, A., Zavadil, J. A., Geusz, M. E. 2023. Using bioluminescence to image gene expression and spontaneous behavior in freely moving mice. PLOS ONE 18(1), e0279875.

Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) of gene expression in live animals is a powerful method for monitoring development, tumor growth, infections, healing, and other progressive, long-term biological processes. BLI remains an effective approach for reducing the number...

Palumbo, G., Kunze, L. H., Oos, R. et al. 2023. Longitudinal studies on Alzheimer disease mouse models with multiple tracer PET/CT: Application of reduction and refinement principles in daily practice to safeguard animal welfare during progressive aging. Animals 13(11), 1812.

Longitudinal studies on mouse models related to Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology play an important role in the investigation of therapeutic targets to help pharmaceutical research in the development of new drugs and in the attempt...

Wolter, A., Bucher, C. H., Kurmies, S. et al. 2023. A buprenorphine depot formulation provides effective sustained post-surgical analgesia for 72 h in mouse femoral fracture models. Scientific Reports 13(1), 3824.

Adequate pain management is essential for ethical and scientific reasons in animal experiments and should completely cover the period of expected pain without the need for frequent re-application. However, current depot formulations of Buprenorphine are...

Trujanovic, R., Rohrbach, H. 2023. Ultrasound-guided block of the sciatic and the femoral nerves in rabbits—A descriptive anatomical study. Animals 13(14), 2393.

The rabbit is a popular animal model for human biomechanical research involving surgery on the hind limb. Mortality is higher in rabbits when undergoing general anesthesia compared to dogs and cats. Moreover, due to their...

Miller, A. L., Clarkson, J. M., Quigley, C. et al. 2022. Evaluating pain and analgesia effectiveness following routine castration in rabbits using behavior and facial expressions. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 782486.

Prevention of pain in rabbits is a priority for both welfare and validity of scientific data. We aimed to determine if the rabbit grimace scale (RbtGS) could be used as a viable, rapid assessment tool...

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...

Paterson, E. A., Turner, P. V. 2022. Challenges with assessing and treating pain in research primates: A focused survey and literature review. Animals 12(17), 2304.

Research primates may undergo surgical procedures making effective pain management essential to ensure good animal welfare and unbiased scientific data. Adequate pain mitigation is dependent on whether veterinarians, technicians, researchers, and caregivers can recognize and...

Windsor, P. A. 2022. Role of topical anaesthesia in pain management of farm animals, a changing paradigm. Animals 12(18), 2459.

Field evidence indicates that livestock producers are motivated by access to products that readily deliver pain management during husbandry interventions and, more recently, viral epidermal infectious diseases, including FMD. There has been impressive adoption in...

Chan, G., Si, C., Nichols, M. R. et al. 2022. Assessment of the safety and efficacy of pre-emptive use of extended-release buprenorphine for mouse laparotomy. JAALAS 61(4), 381-387.

Buprenorphine is commonly used to control postoperative pain in rodents. Short-acting formulations of buprenorphine (bup-HCl) require frequent handling and restraint of animals for appropriate dosing, which can be stressful and confound research outcomes. Ethiqa XR...

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...

Chen, T., Zhou, Z.-Y., Liu, J.-Y. et al. 2022. Impact of partial bile duct ligation with or without repeated magnetic resonance imaging examinations in mice. Scientific Reports 12(1), 21014.

Partial bile duct ligation (pBDL) is considered a well-tolerated cholestatic model. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most widely used tools in noninvasive imaging. However, no systematic studies have reported the possible effects...

Espadas-González, L., Usón-Casaús, J. M., Pastor-Sirvent, N. et al. 2022. Evaluation of the two-point ultrasound-guided transversus abdominis plane block for laparoscopic canine ovariectomy. Animals 12(24), 3556.

The transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block causes desensitization of the abdominal wall and peritoneum. Of all the approaches proposed to perform it, the two-injection-point TAP showed the best results in terms of the area reached...

Reifenrath, J., Heider, M., Kempfert, M. et al. 2022. Buprenorphine in rats: Potent analgesic or trigger for fatal side effects? Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 64(1), 37.

With ongoing animal welfare efforts, multimodal analgesia is often recommended to implement in study protocols. Buprenorphine with very potent analgesic effect is a standard opioid for the use in this context in rats. In this...

Kendall, L. V., Singh, B., Bailey, A. L. et al. 2021. Pharmacokinetics and efficacy of a long-lasting, highly concentrated buprenorphine solution in mice. JAALAS 60(1), 64-71.

Buprenorphine is a commonly used opioid for mitigating pain in laboratory mice after surgical procedures; however, the dosing interval necessary for standard buprenorphine may require treatment every 4 to 6 h to maintain an adequate...

Blaney, A., Jampachaisri, K., Huss, M. K. et al. 2021. Sustained release buprenorphine effectively attenuates postoperative hypersensitivity in an incisional pain model in neonatal rats (Rattus norvegicus). PLOS ONE 16(2), e0246213.

Despite the need for safe and effective postoperative analgesia in neonates, research regarding pain management in neonatal rodents is relatively limited. Here, we investigate whether sustained release buprenorphine (Bup SR) effectively attenuates thermal hypersensitivity in...

Katz, E. M., Huss, M. K., Jampachaisri, K. et al. 2021. Buprenorphine, but not lidocaine, effectively attenuates post-operative thermal hypersensitivity in an incisional model in neonatal rats (Rattus norvegicus). Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 47(1), 1-11.

There is limited information on safe and effective neonatal rodent analgesia. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and duration of analgesia provided by buprenorphine (Bup) and lidocaine (Lid) in an incisional...

Onozawa, E., Azakami, D., Seki, S. et al. 2021. Effect of an insulation device in preventing hypothermia during magnetic resonance imaging examinations for dogs and cats under general anesthesia. Animals 11(8), 2378.

Dogs and cats under general anesthesia may develop hypothermia. When performing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination, it is not possible to place a magnetic material in the MRI room, and MRI equipment requires a...

Bennett, T. E., Pavek, T. J., Schwark, W. S. et al. 2021. Comparison of nociceptive effects of buprenorphine, firocoxib, and meloxicam in a plantar incision model in Sprague–Dawley rats. JAALAS 60(5), 539-548.

Due to their reduced frequency of dosing and ease of availability, NSAIDs are generally preferred over opioids for rodent analgesia. We evaluated the efficacy of the highly COX2-selective NSAID firocoxib as compared with meloxicam and...

Tölgyesi, B., Bakker, J., Nagy, K. et al. 2021. Refined acquisition of high-resolution chest CTs in macaques by free breathing. Laboratory Animals 55(6), 551-559.

The use of medical imaging as a non-invasive or minimally invasive method to assess disease or treatment response continues to grow. A similar trend is observed in pre-clinical research, in general, and more specifically in...

Furumoto, K., Ogita, K., Kamisaka, T. et al. 2021. Effects of multimodal analgesic protocol, with buprenorphine and meloxicam, on mice well-being: A dose finding study. Animals 11(12), 3420.

The anesthetic or analgesic agent of choice, route and frequency of anesthetic or analgesic administration, and stressors induce distress during the perioperative period. We evaluated a multimodal analgesic protocol using buprenorphine and meloxicam on the...

Ajuda, I., Battini, M., Mattiello, S. et al. 2020. Evaluation of pain mitigation strategies in goat kids after cautery disbudding. Animals 10(2), 277.

Nowadays, most of the goat milk production in developed countries is done in intensive indoors production systems. In these systems, procedures such as disbudding are performed routinely. Disbudding is done in young goat kids and...

Alemán-Laporte, J., Bandini, L. A., Garcia-Gomes, M. S. et al. 2020. Combination of ketamine and xylazine with opioids and acepromazine in rats: Physiological changes and their analgesic effect analysed by ultrasonic vocalization. Laboratory Animals 54(2), 171–182.

In this study, the effect of four anaesthetic protocols that included the combination of xylazine (X) and ketamine (K) with acepromazine (A) and opioids (methadone (Me), morphine (Mo) or tramadol (T)) was evaluated in laboratory...

Hempstead, M. N., Waas, J. R., Stewart, M. et al. 2020. Goat kids are not small calves: Species comparisons in relation to disbudding. Animal Welfare 29(3), 293-312.

Limited scientific literature is available for developing 'best practices' guidelines for the management of dairy goats (Caprus hircus), particularly goat kids. Disbudding practices for kids and calves appear to be similar, however, it is important...

Hempstead, M. N., Waas, J. R., Stewart, M. et al. 2020. Can isoflurane and meloxicam mitigate pain associated with cautery disbudding of 3-week-old goat kids? Animals 10(5), 878.

We evaluated the effect of pain mitigation strategies (isoflurane and meloxicam) on the behaviour and physiology of 3-week-old disbudded goat kids. Fifty Saanen does (mean ± SD, 21 ± 3 days old) were randomly allocated...