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. 
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...

Štrbenc, M., Kuhar, U., Lainšček, D. et al. 2023. Rehoming and other refinements and replacement in procedures using golden hamsters in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research. Animals 13(16), 2616.

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...

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...

Anderson, B. J., Curtis, A. M., Jen, A. et al. 2023. Plasma metabolomics supports non-fasted sampling for metabolic profiling across a spectrum of glucose tolerance in the Nile rat model for type 2 diabetes. Lab Animal 52(11), 269–277.

Type 2 diabetes is a challenge in modern healthcare, and animal models are necessary to identify underlying mechanisms. The Nile rat (Arvicanthis niloticus) develops diet-induced diabetes rapidly on a conventional rodent chow diet without genetic...

Benato, L., Murrell, J., Rooney, N. 2023. Determining a cut-off point for intervention analgesia in rabbits using the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale. Veterinary Record 193(5), e2995.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine the threshold of the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale (BRPS) indicating the need for intervention analgesia. Methods: Fourteen members of veterinary staff were recruited to rate rabbits...

Brake, M. E., Russ, B. P., Gansebom, S. et al. 2023. Effects of extended-release buprenorphine on mouse models of influenza. Comparative Medicine 73(6), 466–473.

Mice are widely used as small animal models for influenza infection and immunization studies because of their susceptibility to many strains of influenza, obvious clinical signs of infection, and ease of handling. Analgesia is rarely...

Caires, C. R. S., Bossolani-Martins, A. L. 2023. Which form of environmental enrichment is most effective in rodent models of autism? Behavioural Processes 211, 104915.

Environmental enrichment (EE) is known to produce experience-dependent changes in the brains and behaviors of rodents, and it has therefore been widely used to study neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. Current studies show significant protocol variation...

Ferguson, L. T., Rashied, A. A., Liang, Z. et al. 2023. A novel scoring system for humane endpoints in mice with cecal ligation and puncture-induced sepsis. Comparative Medicine 73(6), 446–460.

Animal-based research is essential to the study of sepsis pathophysiology, diagnostics, and therapeutics. However, animal models of sepsis are often associated with high mortality because of the difficulty in predicting imminent death based on premortem...

Lopez-Echeverria, G., Alamaw, E., Gorman, G. et al. 2023. Comparing three formulations of buprenorphine in an incisional pain model in mice. JAALAS 62(6), 531–537.

This study compared the therapeutic effects in mice of 3 different formulations of buprenorphine. These formulations were standard buprenorphine hydrochloride (Bup-HCL) and 2 different extended-release buprenorphine formulations (Bup-ER and Ethiqa-XR [Bup-XR]). Drugs were evaluated based...

Wongsaengchan, C., McCafferty, D. J., Evans, N. P. et al. 2023. Body surface temperature of rats reveals both magnitude and sex differences in the acute stress response. Physiology & Behavior 264, 114138.

Understanding how biological markers of stress relate to stressor magnitude is much needed and can be used in welfare assessment. Changes in body surface temperature can be measured using infrared thermography (IRT) as a marker...

Pinho, R. H., Justo, A. A., Cima, D. S. et al. 2023. Effects of human observer presence on pain assessment using facial expressions in rabbits. JAALAS 62(1), 81–86.

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of a human observer on Rabbit Grimace Scale (RbtGS) scores. The study scored video footage taken of 28 rabbits before and after orthopedic surgery, as...

Berke, M. S., Fensholdt, L. K. D., Hestehave, S. et al. 2022. Effects of buprenorphine on model development in an adjuvant-induced monoarthritis rat model. PLOS ONE 17(1), e0260356.

Complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA)-induced arthritis in rats is a common animal model for studying chronic inflammatory pain. However, modelling of the disease is associated with unnecessary pain and impaired animal wellbeing, particularly in the immediate...

Guillaumin, A., Vlcek, B., Wallén-Mackenzie, Å. 2022. Improving well-being and survival in the 6-OHDA lesion model of Parkinson´s disease in mice: Literature review and step-by-step protocol. Scandinavian Journal of Animal Science 48(1), 1-21.

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...

Narshi, T. M., Free, D., Justice, W. S. M. et al. 2022. Welfare assessment of invertebrates: Adapting the animal welfare assessment grid (AWAG) for zoo decapods and cephalopods. Animals 12(13), 1675.

Consumer demand for invertebrates is on the rise as their numbers in the wild dwindle. However, with the growing conservation efforts of modern zoos and aquariums, and evidence from over 300 studies showing that invertebrates...

Van Assche, I. A., Padilla, M. S., Stupart, O. S. R. P. et al. 2022. Refinement of the stress-enhanced fear learning model of post-traumatic stress disorder: A behavioral and molecular analysis. Lab Animal 51(11), 293-300.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental health condition for which current treatments have long-term efficacy in 50% of patients. There is a clear need for better understanding of the mechanisms underlying PTSD and...

Zevnik, B., Jerchow, B., Buch, T. 2022. 3R measures in facilities for the production of genetically modified rodents. Lab Animal 51(6), 162-177.

Sociocultural changes in the human–animal relationship have led to increasing demands for animal welfare in biomedical research. The 3R concept is the basis for bringing this demand into practice: Replace animal experiments with alternatives where...

Hughey, S., Campbell, D., Rapp-Santos, K. et al. 2022. Refining the rat sciatic nerve block: A novel ultrasound-guided technique. Laboratory Animals 56(2), 191-195.

Murine translational models are an important tool to understand pain pathophysiology. One procedure used frequently in murine research is the sciatic nerve block. This study sought to demonstrate the use of ultrasound-guided sciatic nerve block...

Riedesel, A.-K., Bach-Hagemann, A., Abdulbaki, A. et al. 2022. Burrowing behaviour of rats: Strain differences and applicability as well-being parameter after intracranial surgery. Laboratory Animals 56(4), 356-369.

In mice, burrowing is considered a species-typical parameter for assessing well-being, while this is less clear in rats. This exploratory study evaluated burrowing behaviour in three rat strains during training and in the direct postoperative...

Allioux, C., Achaintre, L., Cheataini. F. et al. 2022. Animal welfare assessment after severe traumatic brain injury in rats. Laboratory Animals 56(6), 528-539.

Severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a multifactorial injury process involving respiratory, cardiovascular and immune functions in addition to the brain. Thus, live animal models are needed to study the molecular, cellular and systemic mechanisms...

Khalajzeyqami, Z., Grandi, A., Ferrini, E. et al. 2022. Pivotal role of micro-CT technology in setting up an optimized lung fibrosis mouse model for drug screening. PLOS ONE 17(6), e0270005.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive disease with no curative pharmacological treatment. The most used animal model of IPF for anti-fibrotic drug screening is bleomycin (BLM)-induced lung fibrosis. However, several issues have been reported...

MacLellan, A., Nazal, B., Young et al. 2022. Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: Investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states. Royal Society Open Science 9(11), 221083.

Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one...

Eagan, B. H., Eagan, B., Protopopova, A. 2022. Behaviour real-time spatial tracking identification (BeRSTID) used for cat behaviour monitoring in an animal shelter. Scientific Reports 12(1), 17585.

Efficiently tracking animal behaviour in an animal shelter has direct lifesaving applications. Individualized care and early recognition of distress in cats are often missed. However, monitoring behaviour is a challenge as time and financial resources...

Feighelstein, M., Shimshoni, I., Finka, L. R. et al. 2022. Automated recognition of pain in cats. Scientific Reports 12(1), 9575.

Facial expressions in non-human animals are closely linked to their internal affective states, with the majority of empirical work focusing on facial shape changes associated with pain. However, existing tools for facial expression analysis are...

Córneo, E., Michels, M., Abatti, M. et al. 2022. Enriched environment causes epigenetic changes in hippocampus and improves long-term cognitive function in sepsis. Scientific Reports 12(1), 11529.

Sepsis is defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by an inappropriate host response to infection. The presence of oxidative stress and inflammatory mediators in sepsis leads to dysregulated gene expression, leading to a hyperinflammatory...

Chen, J., Xu, X., Dalhaimer, P. et al. 2022. Tetra-primer amplification-refractory mutationsystem (ARMS)—PCR for genotyping mouse leptin gene mutation. Animals 12(19), 2680.

Due to spontaneous deficiency in leptin, ob/ob mice are one of the most commonly used experimental animal models in diabetes research. In this study, we reported a quick and easy-to-conduct genotyping method using tetra-primer amplification...