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. 

We evaluated 255 African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximus) elephants living in 68 North American zoos over one year to quantify housing and social variables. All parameters were quantified for the both the day...

Resting behaviors are an essential component of animal welfare but have received little attention in zoological research. African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) and Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) rest includes recumbent postures, but no large-scale investigation...

Training techniques that prepare laboratory animals to participate in testing via cooperation are useful tools that have the potential to benefit animal wellbeing. Understanding how animals systematically vary in their cooperative training trajectories will help...

There is a general consensus that perinatal experiences help to shape infant behavior; however, relatively little is known about the effects of prenatal experience on postnatal phenotype in non‐human primates. The current study sought to...

Social pain is the negative affect signaling threat or harm to social relationships. Loneliness is perceived social isolation and can be found across phylogeny. Evidence from diverse fields demonstrates an overlap of social and physical...

Training is recognised as important for laboratory animals, both to improve welfare and increase the efficiency of conducting husbandry and regulated procedures. Despite the acknowledged need for such training in the laboratory-housed dog and the...

In the attempt to verify clicker training efficacy in shaping dogs’ novel behaviours, we studied 51 domestic dogs. Learning was evaluated in three different conditions: when the primary reinforcer (food) was presented in association with...

This chapter traces the integration of macaques as experimental organisms for polio in Norway during the 1960s and 1970s. Investigating the integration of macaque monkeys helps to craft an understanding of how political and scientific...

Introduction: The Safety Pharmacology Society (SPS) and National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) conducted a survey and workshop in 2015 to define current industry practices relating to housing...

Introduction: There is a growing weight of evidence to suggest that myocardial contractility is an important parameter to assess as part of IND enabling studies in addition to standard assessments as per the ICH S7A...

At Charles River, we are committed to ensuring all animals have the highest level of care and welfare. At our facility, the typical study design requires primates to be housed in groups of 3 (or...

Proactive efforts to socially house laboratory animals are a contemporary, important focus for enhancing animal welfare. Jacketing cynomolgus monkeys has been traditionally considered an exclusionary criterion for social housing based on unsubstantiated concerns that study...

Full body repetitive behaviors, known as motor stereotypic behaviors (MSBs), are one of the most commonly seen abnormal behaviors in captive non-human primates, and are frequently used as a behavioral measure of well-being. The main...

This paper describes the use of a validated quality of life assessment tool (described elsewhere) to identify environmental and management factors that may affect quality of life in dogs kennelled in rehoming centres. Dogs were...

Due to the despotic nature of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and their frequent use in biomedical research, it is important to understand the impact that standard housing practices can have on individuals of this species...

The exchange of services such as allo-grooming, allo-preening, food tolerance and agonistic support has been observed in a range of species. Two proximate mechanisms have been proposed to explain the exchanges of services in animals...

When training animals, time is sometimes a limiting factor hampering the use of positive reinforcement training (PRT) exclusively. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a combination of negative and positive...

Assessing the cardiovascular safety of new chemical or biological entities is important during pre-clinical development. Electrocardiogram (ECG) assessments in non-human primate (NHP) toxicology studies are often made using non-invasive telemetry systems. We investigated whether ECG...

The study of laboratory animal behavior has increased steadily over the last decade, with expanding emphasis on a variety of commonly used species. In the United States, this trend was initially focused on species for...

Introduction: Proactive efforts to socially house laboratory animals are a contemporary, important focus for enhancing animal welfare. Jacketing cynomolgus monkeys has been traditionally considered an exclusionary criterion for social housing based on unsubstantiated concerns that...

Dogs (Canis familiaris) are a highly social species and within a shelter environment pair-housing is recommended to prevent the stress associated with social isolation. Separation of individuals which may have formed bonds in this environment...

The cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) has been increasingly used in biomedical research. Although living conditions affect behavioral and physiological characteristics in macaques, little data is available on how living conditions influence blood-based parameters in the...

Housing laboratory primates in large pens can improve welfare by providing ample opportunity to express normal social and locomotor behaviors. This type of housing, however, can present great challenges in terms of manipulating animals for...

Data collection can help facilitate the progress of social housing programs within individual institutions and in the industry as a whole. One benefit is that it provides the ability to address preconceived ideas (“myths”) with...

Canis familiarisis a highly social species. Among the social relationships between two individuals, a particular case is represented by attachment bonds. The aim of the current study was to assess whether the bond between adult...