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. 

Objective Mouse models are valuable in preclinical studies of inflammatory arthritis. However, current methods for measuring disease severity or responses to treatment are not optimal. In this study a smart cage system using multiple sensors...

Monitoring the activity of mice within their home cage is proving to be a powerful tool for revealing subtle and early-onset phenotypes in mouse models. Video-tracking, in particular, lends itself to automated machine-learning technologies that...

Surgical castration of piglets is generally recognized as a painful procedure, but there is currently no gold standard for the assessment of pain behavior in piglets. However, pain assessment is essential for evaluating the effectiveness...

Despite the large number of pigs involved in translational studies, no gold standard depth of anaesthesia indicators are available. We undertook a scoping review to investigate and summarize the evidence that sustains or contradicts the...

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...

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...

Research investigating the effects of mirror exposure in mice found that the presence of mirrors has similar effects to the presence of cage mates. Restraint in a small holder induces hyperthermia (stress-induce hyperthermia: SIH) in...

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...

Intrapleural injections can be used in mice to deliver therapeutic and diagnostic agents and to model human disease processes (for example, pleural fluid accumulation, malignant pleural disease, and lung cancers). In the context of establishing...

Translocation science has made considerable progress over the last two decades; however, reptile translocations still frequently fail around the world. Major knowledge gaps surround the basic ecology of reptile species, including basic factors such as...

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...

In clinical veterinary practice, proper training and expertise in anesthesia administration and monitoring are essential. Pigs are suitable experimental animals for many surgical techniques because they are similar in size to humans and have a...

Electrical stunning is used to capture crocodiles to perform routine management procedures. It is essential from a welfare point that electrical stunning must cause unconsciousness in animals. However, there is no information of whether or...

Heart disease is a major contributor to mortality and disability on a global scale. Hence, there is a need for research to improve non-invasive diagnostic techniques. Diseases in dogs with characteristics very similar to those...

In veterinary practice, most minor procedures such as radiographs, skin biopsies, and wound treatments require sedation. The combination of butorphanol, ketamine, and dexmedetomidine is commonly used, but the ideal dosages for this combination have not...

It is estimated that 2 million domestic animals travel on commercial flights every year in the US alone and that dogs make up 58% of pets travelling worldwide. There has been little research on the...

The mechanisms underlying the formation and retrieval of memories are still an active area of research and discussion. Manifold models have been proposed and refined over the years, with most assuming a dichotomy between memory...

Patients with cirrhosis present multiple physiological and immunological alterations that play a very important role in the development of clinically relevant secondary complications to the disease. Experimentation in animal models is essential to understand the...

Two young (11-week-old) pigs underwent sole propofol anaesthesia as part of an experimental study. The depth of anaesthesia was evaluated both clinically and using the electroencephalography(EEG)-based monitor Sedline; in particular, the patient state index, suppression...

Rodents, laboratory rats and mice, have been used as models in experimental research for almost two centuries (Keeler, 1947; Bolles and Woods, 1964; Nishioka, 1995; Guénet and Bonhomme, 2003). During this time, it has been...

There is increasing evidence of compromised welfare for elephants managed in captivity. Should such facilities eventually close, more elephants will need to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into the wild. The goal of such reintegration would...

Noise-induced tinnitus is generally associated with hearing impairment caused by traumatic acoustic overexposure. Previous studies in laboratory animals and human subjects, however, have observed differences in tinnitus susceptibility, even among individuals with similar hearing loss...

Effective vaccines are needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty golden hamsters were inoculated with two promising vaccine candidates and eighteen animals were used in pilot trials with viral challenge. ELISA assays were performed to...

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...

Small animal models are frequently used to improve our understanding of the molecular and biological signaling pathways underlying the beneficial effects of physical activity and exercise. Unfortunately, when running wheels are employed, mice and rats...