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. 
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...

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...

Lupfer, G., Brandenburger, A., Machado, M. et al. 2023. Ultrasonic vocalizations near 30 kHz may indicate excitement rather than distress in female Wistar rats. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 261, 105881.

Rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), sometimes referred to as 50-kHz vocalizations, during activities such as play and lower-frequency USVs, sometimes referred to as 22-kHz vocalizations, when experiencing distress. Definitions of 22-kHz vocalizations vary in terms...

Broadfoot, C. K., Lenell, C., Kelm-Nelson, C. A. et al. 2023. Effects of social isolation on 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations, affective state, cognition, and neurotransmitter concentrations in the ventral tegmental and locus coeruleus of adult rats. Behavioural Brain Research 437, 114157.

Vocal communication, cognition, and affective state are key features of sustained health and wellness, and because vocalizations are often socially-motivated, social experience likely plays a role in these behaviors. The monoaminergic systems of the ventral...

Olczak, K., Penar, W., Nowicki, J. et al. 2023. The role of sound in livestock farming—Selected aspects. Animals 13(14), 2307.

To ensure the optimal living conditions of farm animals, it is essential to understand how their senses work and the way in which they perceive their environment. Most animals have a different hearing range compared...

Svartberg, K. 2022. A possible basis for personality in dogs: Individual differences in affective predispositions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 255, 105740.

Previously, dog personality traits that seem to correspond have been identified by the Dog Mentality Assessment (DMA) and the Behaviour and Personality Assessment in Dogs (BPH): Playfulness, Sociability, Curiosity/fearlessness (DMA) vs. Non-social fearfulness (BPH), Aggressiveness...

Schnaider, M. A., Heidemann, M. S., Pescatori Silva, A. H. et al. 2022. Vocalization and other behaviors indicating pain in beef calves during the ear tagging procedure. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 47, 93-98.

Vocalization and other behavior signals are used as tools to assess animal welfare in beef calves. This paper aimed to compare vocal parameters and behavior signals expressed by beef calves submitted either to ear tagging...

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...

Tivey, E. K. L., Martin, J. E., Brown, S. M. et al. 2022. Sex differences in 50 kHz call subtypes emitted during tickling-induced playful behaviour in rats. Scientific Reports 12(1), 15323.

‘Tickling’ induces positive affective states in laboratory rats as evidenced by the production of 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalisations (USVs), although this has mostly been investigated in males. Juvenile rats emit distinctive 50-kHz USV subtypes. Frequency-modulated (FM)...

Marx, A., Lenkei, R., Pérez Fraga, P. et al. 2021. Occurrences of non-linear phenomena and vocal harshness in dog whines as indicators of stress and ageing. Scientific Reports 11(1), 4468.

During social interactions, acoustic parameters of tetrapods’ vocalisations reflect the emotional state of the caller. Higher levels of spectral noise and the occurrence of irregularities (non-linear phenomena NLP) might be negative arousal indicators in alarm...

Laurijs, K. A., Briefer, E. F., Reimert, I. et al. 2021. Vocalisations in farm animals: A step towards positive welfare assessment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 236, 105264.

Public concern for farm animal welfare is increasing. Animal welfare is defined as the balance of positive and negative emotions, where positive emotions are key to a good animal life. Emotion is defined as an...

Robinson, L. M., Waran, N. K., Handel, I. et al. 2021. Happiness, welfare, and personality in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 236, 105268.

When we treat an animal’s welfare as an individual experience, we should consider the possibility that it may be associated with individual differences in personality. We tested for such associations in 44 socially housed rhesus...

Seidisarouei, M., van Gurp, S., Pranic, N. M. et al. 2021. Distinct profiles of 50 kHz vocalizations differentiate between social versus non-social reward approach and consumption. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 15, 693698.

Social animals tend to possess an elaborate vocal communication repertoire, and rats are no exception. Rats utilize ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) to communicate information about a wide range of socially relevant cues, as well as information...

Pomerantz, O., Capitanio, J. P. 2021. Temperament predicts the quality of social interactions in captive female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Animals 11(8), 2452.

Previous reports suggest that female macaques with greater similarity in emotionality and nervous temperament, as evaluated in a well-established BioBehavioral Assessment (BBA) at the California National Primate Research Center, were more likely to form successful...

Neave, H. W., Costa, J. H. C., Weary, D. M. 2020. Long-term consistency of personality traits of cattle. Royal Society Open Science 7(2), 7191849.

Personality is often defined as the behaviour of individual animals that is consistent across contexts and over time. Personality traits may become unstable during stages of ontogeny from infancy to adulthood, especially during major periods...

Rankins, E. M., Wickens, C. L. 2020. A systematic review of equine personality. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 231, 105076.

Examining the literature suggests equine personality is of interest to behavior and welfare scientists and those involved in the equine industry. Study and assessment of personality is critical because of the profound implications certain traits...

Williams, E., Carter, A., Hall, C. et al. 2019. Exploring the relationship between personality and social interactions in zoo-housed elephants: Incorporation of keeper expertise. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 221, 104876.

Individual animal personalities affect experiences of zoo environments, and thus potentially welfare. Incorporating keeper knowledge of animal personality in a reliable way has great value in optimising welfare in zoo-housed animals. Assessment of animal personality...

Brudzynski, S. M. 2019. Emission of 22 kHz vocalizations in rats as an evolutionary equivalent of human crying: Relationship to depression. Behavioural Brain Research 363, 1-12.

There is no clear relationship between crying and depression based on human neuropsychiatric observations. This situation originates from lack of suitable animal models of human crying. In the present article, an attempt will be made...

Parsons, C. E., LeBeau, R. T., Kringelbach, M. L. et al. 2019. Pawsitively sad: Pet-owners are more sensitive to negative emotion in animal distress vocalizations. Royal Society Open Science 6(8), 181555.

Pets have numerous, effective methods to communicate with their human hosts. Perhaps most conspicuous of these are distress vocalizations: in cats, the ‘miaow’ and in dogs, the ‘whine’ or ‘whimper’. We compared a sample of...

Green, A., Clark, C., Favaro, L. et al. 2019. Vocal individuality of Holstein-Friesian cattle is maintained across putatively positive and negative farming contexts. Scientific Reports 9, 18468.

Cattle mother-offspring contact calls encode individual-identity information; however, it is unknown whether cattle are able to maintain individuality when vocalising to familiar conspecifics over other positively and negatively valenced farming contexts. Accordingly, we recorded 333...

Geerah, D. R., O’Hagan, R. P., Wirdateti, W. et al. 2019. The use of ultrasonic communication to maintain social cohesion in the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus). Folia Primatologica 90(5), 392–403.

Only a handful of primate taxa use ultrasonic vocalisations (those ≥20 kHz) to communicate. The extent and uses of ultrasonic communication remain poorly understood, potentially ranging from echolocation, advertisement of reproductive status and resource availability...

Stomp, M., Leroux, M., Cellier, M. et al. 2018. An unexpected acoustic indicator of positive emotions in horses. PLOS ONE 13(7), e0197898.

Indicators of positive emotions are still scarce and many proposed behavioural markers have proven ambiguous. Studies established a link between acoustic signals and emitter’s internal state, but few related to positive emotions and still fewer...

Gottlieb, D. H., Del Rosso, L, Sheikhi, F. et al. 2018. Personality, environmental stressors, and diarrhea in Rhesus macaques: An interactionist perspective. American Journal of Primatology 80(12), e22908.

Previous research has repeatedly shown both personality and psychological stress to predict gastrointestinal disorders and chronic diarrhea in humans. The goal of the present research was to evaluate the role of personality, as well as...

Linden, J.B., Capitanio, J.P., McCowan, B. et al. 2018. Coping style and cortisol levels in infancy predict hair cortisol following new group formation in captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). American Journal of Primatology 80(12), e22938.

Social instability in primate groups has been used as a model to understand how social stress affects human populations. While it is well established that individual cercopithecines have different temperaments or personalities, little is known...

Masilkova, M., Weiss, A., Konečná, M. 2018. How long does it take? Reliable personality assessment based on common behaviour in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Behavioural Processes 157, 59-67.

Individual variation in behaviour has been shown to have important ecological and evolutionary consequences. Research on animal personality has therefore received considerable attention, yet some methodological issues remain unresolved. We tested whether assessing personality by...