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. 
Alfonso, S., Sadoul, B., Cousin, X. et al. 2020. Spatial distribution and activity patterns as welfare indicators in response to water quality changes in European sea bass, Dicentrarchus labrax. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 226, 104974.

In aquaculture, fish are exposed to unavoidable stressors that can be detrimental for their health and welfare. However, welfare in farmed fish can be difficult to assess, and, so far, no standardized test has been...

Turner, P. V., Pang, D. S., Lofgren, J. L. 2019. A review of pain assessment methods in laboratory rodents. Comparative Medicine 69(6), 451–467.

Ensuring that laboratory rodent pain is well managed underpins the ethical acceptability of working with these animals in research. Appropriate treatment of pain in laboratory rodents requires accurate assessments of the presence or absence of...

Smith J. C. 2019. A review of strain and sex differences in response to pain and analgesia in mice. Comparative Medicine 69(6), 490–500.

Pain and its alleviation are currently a highly studied issue in human health. Research on pain and response to analgesia has evolved to include the effects of genetics, heritability, and sex as important components in...

Gjendal, K., Ottesen, J. L., Olsson, I. et al. 2020. Effect of repeated exposure to isoflurane on nest building and burrowing in mice. JAALAS 59(1), 30–36.

Nest building and burrowing are highly motivated natural behaviors in rodents, and changes in these behaviors can serve as welfare assessment tools. In this study, we investigated: 1) the limits of agreement between 2 observers...

Gallo, M. S., Karas, A. Z., Pritchett-Corning, K. et al. 2020. Tell-tale TINT: Does the time to incorporate into nest test evaluate postsurgical pain or welfare in mice? JAALAS 59(1), 37–45.

Identifying early indicators of distress in mice is difficult using either periodic monitoring or current technology. Likewise, poor pain identification remains a barrier to providing appropriate pain relief in many mouse models. The Time to...

Johnston, J. R., Meeker, T. L., Ramsey, J. K. et al. 2020. Utility of automated feeding data to detect social instability in a captive breeding colony of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): A case study of intrafamily aggression. JAALAS 59(1), 46–57.

Some captive breeding colonies of rhesus macaques live in large outdoor multimale, multifemale social groups. These groups are composed of several matrilineal families, governed by a clear female dominance hierarchy. Aggression within the same or...

Nwagwu, C. D., Defensor, E., Jiang, M. Y. et al. 2020. Endpoint in ovarian cancer xenograft model predicted by nighttime motion metrics. Lab Animal 49(8), 227–232.

Despite several therapeutics showing promise in nonclinical studies, survival from ovarian cancer remains poor. New technologies are urgently needed to optimize the translation of nonclinical studies into clinical successes. While most nonclinical settings utilize subjective...

Wilkinson, M. J. A., Selman, C., McLaughlin, L. et al. 2020. Progressing the care, husbandry and management of ageing mice used in scientific studies. Laboratory Animals 54(3) 225–238.

Driven by the longer lifespans of humans, particularly in Westernised societies, and the need to know more about ‘healthy ageing’, ageing mice are being used increasingly in scientific research. Many departments and institutes involved with...

Rasys, A. M., Divers, S. J., Lauderdale, J. D. et al. 2020. A systematic study of injectable anesthetic agents in the brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei). Laboratory Animals 54(3), 281–292.

Anolis lizards have served as important research models in fields ranging from evolution and ecology to physiology and biomechanics. However, anoles are also emerging as important models for studies of embryo development and tissue regeneration...

Nørgaard, S. A., Søndergaard, H., Sørensen, D. B. et al. 2020. Optimising streptozotocin dosing to minimise renal toxicity and impairment of stomach emptying in male 129/Sv mice. Laboratory Animals 54(4), 341–352.

The streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mouse model has been extensively used as a model for diabetes and diabetic nephropathy, but it is still influenced by many off-target toxic effects and large variation in diabetes induction. Therefore...

van Dijk, R. M., Koska, I., Bleich, A. et al. 2020. Design of composite measure schemes for comparative severity assessment in animal-based neuroscience research: A case study focussed on rat epilepsy models. PLOS ONE 15(5): e0230141.

Comparative severity assessment of animal models and experimental interventions is of utmost relevance for harm-benefit analysis during ethical evaluation, an animal welfare-based model prioritization as well as the validation of refinement measures. Unfortunately, there is...

Hedenqvist, P., Trbakovic, A., Mellgren, T. et al. 2020. The effect of housing environment on bone healing in a critical radius defect in New Zealand white rabbits. PLOS ONE 15(5), e0233530.

In animal studies on bone healing, the effect of housing space and physical activity are seldom taken into account. Bone formation was evaluated in New Zealand White rabbits (mean ± SEM BW: 3.9 ± 0.11...

Helgers, S., Talbot, S. R., Riedesel, A. K. et al. 2020. Body weight algorithm predicts humane endpoint in an intracranial rat glioma model. Scientific Reports 10, 9020.

Humane endpoint determination is fundamental in animal experimentation. Despite commonly accepted endpoint criteria for intracranial tumour models (20% body weight loss and deteriorated clinical score) some animals still die before being euthanized in current research...

Zhang, X., Kumstel, S., Tang, G. et al. 2020. A rational approach of early humane endpoint determination in a murine model for cholestasis. ALTEX 37(2), 197-207.

Reduction of animal suffering during in vivo experiments is usually ensured by continuously monitoring the health status using a score sheet and by applying humane endpoints. However, most studies do not evaluate the plausibility of...

Tang, W., Zillmann, U., Sprengel, R. 2020. Alternative anesthesia of neonatal mice for global rAAV delivery in the brain with non-detectable behavioral interference in adults. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 14, 115.

Viral-transduced gene expression is the current standard for cell-type-specific labeling and cell tacking in experimental neuroscience. To achieve widespread gene expression, a viral delivery method to neonatal rodents was introduced more than two decades ago...

Stevens, C., Finnegan, E., Clarkson, J. et al. 2020. Report of the 2019 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 19(2), 101-111.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 26 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues, and share experiences of...

Hosking, A., Martinic, G. 2020. The care of Central and Pygmy bearded dragons. Animal Technology and Welfare 19(2), 125-130.

This article describes the care of central bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps) as well as Pygmy bearded dragons (Pogona henrylawsoni). It includes information on housing, feeding, handling and sexing technique, as well as the general health...

Singleton, S., Nefla, M., Dennison, N. et al. 2020. Assessing pain in models of rheumatoid arthritis. Animal Technology and Welfare 19(2), 149-152.

A hallmark symptom of rheumatoid arthritis in humans is painful swollen joints. Pain can manifest before any inflammation is noticeable as well as persist long after inflammation has resolved. In rodent models of arthritis, ankle...

Jones, H., King, R. 2020. Refinements to health monitoring. Animal Technology and Welfare 19(2), 153-154.

This poster offers two visual health monitoring scoring sheets for mice. The first consists of a red-amber-green coding system to determine the frequency of daily health checks and when a humane endpoint is reached. The...

Zude, B. P., Jampachaisri, K., Pacharinsak, C. 2020. Use of flavored tablets of gabapentin and carprofen to attenuate postoperative hypersensitivity in an incisional pain model in rats (Rattus norvegicus). JAALAS 59(2), 163–169.

Providing postoperative analgesia to rats by oral administration, compared with injections, reduces stress from frequent handling and is technically easier for investigators. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether bacon-flavored tablets containing gabapentin...

Smith, B. J., Bruner, K., Hess, A. M. et al. 2020. Female urine-induced ultrasonic vocalizations in male C57BL/6J mice as a proxy indicator for postoperative pain. JAALAS 59(2), 204–211.

Objectively recognizing postoperative pain in mice is challenging, making it difficult to determine an appropriate postoperative analgesic regimen. Adult male mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations after exposure to adult female urine (FiUSV). To determine if FiUSV...

Thoré, E. S. J., Brendonck, L., Pinceel, T. 2020. Conspecific density and environmental complexity impact behaviour of turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri). Fish Biology 97(5), 1448–1461.

Fish models are essential for research in many biological and medical disciplines. With a typical lifespan of only 6 months, the turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri) was recently established as a time- and cost-efficient model to...

Rix, A., Drude, N., Mrugalla, A. et al. 2020. Performance of severity parameters to detect chemotherapy-induced pain and distress in mice. Laboratory Animals 54(5), 452-460.

According to European Union directive 2010/63/EU a severity classification of experimental procedures performed on laboratory animals is mandatory. This includes a prospective evaluation of all interventions performed within the experiment, as well as an assessment...

Zieglowski, L., Kümmecke, A., Ernst, L. et al. 2020. Severity assessment using three common behavioral or locomotor tests after laparotomy in rats: A pilot study. Laboratory Animals 54(6), 525-535.

The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate whether behavioral or locomotor tests (Open Field (OF), rotarod (RR), and CatWalk (CW)) can help assess the severity of laparotomy in rats. The new EU Directive...

Strait, K.,Chisholm, A., Kusovska, C. et al. 2020. Water pigs! Capybara husbandry in a biomedical research lab. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(5) (September/October), 14-18.

Capybaras, also known as “water pigs,” are the world’s largest rodent. Although these animals are closely related to guinea pigs, with a shoulder height of approximately 2 ft, coarse brown fur, and partially webbed feet...