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...

Baqueiro-Espinosa, U., Donnelly, P., McEvoy, V. et al. 2024. The links between positive human interaction and maternal behaviour and welfare of commercial breeding dams (Canis familiaris). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 270, 106147.

In dogs, maternal behaviour plays an essential role in offspring survival and can influence the development and behaviour of the neonate later in life. We investigated the effect of prepartum enrichment on maternal behaviour and...

Bartelik, A., Čater, M., Cevik, Ö. S. et al. 2024. Focus on novel approaches: Home-cage monitoring of laboratory mice. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 50, 1–5.

Assessment of behavioural phenotype is crucial for the evaluation of various disease models, particularly inlaboratory rodents. Traditionally, this includes performing a variety of conventional tests where animals areremoved from their home-cages and placed in behavioural...

Bellini, L., Schrank, M., Veladiano, I. A. et al. 2023. Retrospective comparison of the effects of laryngeal mask and endotracheal tube on some cardio-respiratory variables in pet rabbits undergoing anaesthesia for elective gonadectomy. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 10.

Endotracheal intubation in rabbits is challenging and supraglottic airway devices, such as laryngeal masks (LMA), represent an alternative as they are easy to insert, and do not stimulate the larynx requiring therefore a lighter plane...

Cohen, S., Ho, C. 2023. Review of rat (Rattus norvegicus), Mouse (mus musculus), Guinea pig (Cavia procellus), and rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) indicators for welfare assessment. Animals 13(13), 2167.

The monitoring and assessment of animals is important for their health and welfare. The appropriate selection of multiple, validated, and feasible welfare assessment indicators is required to effectively identify compromises or improvements to animal welfare...

Lambertini, C., Grandis, A., De Silva, M. et al. 2023. The spritztube: A new device for extraglottic intubation of rabbits. Animals 13(1), 156.

The Spritztube (ST) is an extraglottic airway device developed for humans. The aim of the study was to design an ST for rabbits and to evaluate its feasibility. The study was divided into two phases...

Marks, C. A., Allen, L., Lindeberg, H. 2023. Non-lethal dose-response models replace lethal bioassays for predicting the hazard of para-animopropiophenone to Australian wildlife. Animals 13(3), 472.

Para-aminopropiophenone (PAPP) is a potent methaemoglobin (MetHb) forming agent used for the lethal control of exotic carnivores and mustelids. To assess the sensitivity of Australian wildlife to PAPP we developed an in vivo assay that...

Peruga, M., Kawala, B., Sarul, M. et al. 2023. Are currently selected laboratory animals useful in the research of how female hormones influence orthodontic biomechanics? Animals 13(4), 629.

Animal testing was and remains the only method of introducing a certain treatment and medical procedure on humans. On the other hand, animals have their rights resulting from applicable legal acts, including Directive 2010/63/EU and...

Quante, S. M., Siewert, V., Palme, R. et al. 2023. The power of a touch: Regular touchscreen training but not its termination affects hormones and behavior in mice. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1112780.

Touchscreen-based procedures are increasingly used in experimental animal research. They not only represent a promising approach for translational research, but have also been highlighted as a powerful tool to reduce potential experimenter effects in animal...

Swan, J., Boyer, S., Westlund, K. et al. 2023. Decreased levels of discomfort in repeatedly handled mice during experimental procedures, assessed by facial expressions. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1109886.

Mice are the most commonly used laboratory animal, yet there are limited studies which investigate the effects of repeated handling on their welfare and scientific outcomes. Furthermore, simple methods to evaluate distress in mice are...

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...

Baqueiro-Espinosa, U., Lo, T. H., Hunter, R. et al. 2023. Positive human interaction improves welfare in commercial breeding dogs: Evidence from attention bias and human sociability tests. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 262, 105904.

Intensive breeding practices found in large scale Commercial Breeding Establishments (CBEs) raise significant concerns about breeding dam welfare. Large-scale CBE dams spend most of their reproductive lives confined to kennels, with limited access to enriching...

Moëne, O. L., Larsson, M. 2023. A new tool for quantifying mouse facial expressions. ENeuro 10(2) ENEURO.0349-22.2022.

Facial expressions are an increasingly used tool to assess emotional experience and affective state during experimental procedures in animal models. Previous studies have successfully related specific facial features with different positive and negative valence situations...

Bramati, G., Stauffer, P., Nigri, M. et al. 2023. Environmental enrichment improves hippocampus-dependent spatial learning in female C57BL/6 mice in novel IntelliCage sweet reward-based behavioral tests. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.

The IntelliCage is an automated home-cage system that allows researchers to investigate the spontaneous behavior and learning abilities of group-housed mice. The IntelliCage enables us to increase the standardization and reproducibility of behavioral outcomes by...

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...

Campbell-Ward, M. 2023. Quality-of-life assessments in zoo animals: Not just for the aged and charismatic. Animals 13(21), 3394

Zoos should aim to provide all of their animals with a good quality of life (QoL) throughout all life stages. In parallel with the evolution of QoL assessment questionnaires and tools in human and domestic...

Dietrich, T., Aigner, A., Hildebrandt, A. et al. 2023. Nesting behavior is associated with body weight and grip strength loss in mice suffering from experimental arthritis. Scientific Reports 13(1), 23087.

Objective animal health evaluation is essential to determine welfare and discomfort in preclinical in vivo research. Body condition scores, body weight, and grimace scales are commonly used to evaluate well-being in murine rheumatoid arthritis (RA)...

Gunter, L. M., Blade, E. M., Gilchrist, R. J. et al. 2023. The influence of brief outing and temporary fostering programs on shelter dog welfare. Animals 13(22), 3528.

Human interaction is one of the most consistently effective interventions that can improve the welfare of shelter-living dogs. Time out of the kennel with a person has been shown to reduce physiological measures of stress...

rueger, J. C., Boecker, M., Gauggel, S. et al. 2023. Using photographs for rating severity degrees of clinical appearance in research mice enables valid discrimination of extreme but not mild and moderate conditions: A pilot study. PLOS ONE 18(11), e0287965.

To ensure good animal welfare in laboratory research and in stockbreeding severity ratings of the animals´ wellbeing are essential. The current study investigated how valid raters can evaluate different severity degrees of clinical appearance and...

Littlewood, K. E., Heslop, M. V., Cobb, M. L. 2023. The agency domain and behavioral interactions: Assessing positive animal welfare using the Five Domains Model. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.
Reiber, M., Schumann, L. von, Buchecker, V. et al. 2023. Evidence-based comparative severity assessment in young and adult mice. PLOS ONE 18(10), e0285429.

In animal-based research, welfare assessments are essential for ethical and legal reasons. However, accurate assessment of suffering in laboratory animals is often complicated by the multidimensional character of distress and pain and the associated affective...

Tanaka, Y., Nakata, T., Hibino, H. et al. 2023. Classification of multiple emotional states from facial expressions in head-fixed mice using a deep learning-based image analysis. PLOS ONE 18(7), e0288930.

Facial expressions are widely recognized as universal indicators of underlying internal states in most species of animals, thereby presenting as a non-invasive measure for assessing physical and mental conditions. Despite the advancement of artificial intelligence-assisted...

van der Laan, J. E., Vinke, C. M., Arndt, S. S. 2023. Nocturnal activity as a useful indicator of adaptability of dogs in an animal shelter and after subsequent adoption. Scientific Reports 13(1), 19014.

Dogs in shelters are faced with the challenge of adapting to a kennel after relinquishment and to a novel home after adoption. To measure adaptability of dogs, more feasible behavioural and physiological parameters need to...

Van Loo, P. L. P., Janssens, M. R. E. 2023. Why all healthy laboratory animals should be rehomed, no matter how small. Animals 13(17), 2727.

This paper explores the ethical imperative of rehoming all healthy animals of sentient species after experiments have finished or when they have become otherwise redundant. We take into account disparate perspectives in animal ethics and...