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. 

Being social animals, rats exhibit a range of social behaviors that help them build social bonds and maintain group cohesion. Behavior is influenced by multiple factors, including stress exposure, and the expression of the impact...

The low replicability of scientific studies has become an important issue. One possible cause is low representativeness of the experimental design employed. Already in the 1950’s, Egon Brunswick pointed out that experimental setups ideally should...

Laboratory mice spend most of their lives in cages, not experiments, so improving housing conditions is a first-choice approach to improving their welfare. Despite the increasing popularity of enrichment, little is known about the benefits...

In intense breeding programs, rabbits are exposed to numerous stress factors which could affect their welfare and health. It has been suggested that group housing is more comfortable for does and similar to the living...

The objective of the study was to investigate the effects of housing (deep litter + concrete floor vs. deep litter + ground soil with the possibility to dig burrows), and genotype (Mecklenburg or Hyplus) on...

Even though chinchillas have been farmed for a century, there are not many studies concerning their behaviour in captivity or their optimal housing conditions, both of which are important factors in the assessment of their...

Animal welfare is recognized as essential for the coexistence of humans and animals. Considering the increased demand and interest in animal welfare, many methods for improving animal welfare are being devised, but which method reduces...

Social play is a dynamic and rewarding behavior abundantly expressed by most mammals during the juvenile period. While its exact function is debated, various rodent studies on the effects of juvenile social isolation suggest that...

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...

Drug safety and efficacy studies frequently use oral gavage, but repetitive usage may cause problems. Administration through voluntary ingestion represents an opportunity for refinement. We aimed to develop a protocol for voluntary ingestion of gelatin-based...

Mice are the most commonly used laboratory animal, yet there are limited studies which investigate the effects of repeated handling on their welfare and scientific outcomes. Furthermore, simple methods to evaluate distress in mice are...

Cage-mate aggression is a well-known problem that is more prevalent in certain strains of mice and is one of the most common reasons for single housing, increased stress levels, premature death and euthanasia. Numerous methods...

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...

Although there exist several studies examining the housing needs of rabbits kept in laboratories and for meat, studies of the requirements of pet rabbits are few and focus entirely on single rabbits. Pet rabbits are...

Healthy brain development depends on early social practices and experiences. The risk gene CACNA1C is implicated in numerous neuropsychiatric disorders, in which key characteristics include deficits in social functioning and communication. Recently, we reported sex-dependent...

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...

Social interaction can improve animal performance through the prevention of stress-related events, the provision of security, and the enhancement of reproductive output and survival. We investigated the effects of prolonged chronic social isolation stress on...

The rabbit is a popular animal model for human biomechanical research involving surgery on the hind limb. Mortality is higher in rabbits when undergoing general anesthesia compared to dogs and cats. Moreover, due to their...

Housing in metabolic cages can induce a pronounced stress response. Metabolic cage systems imply housing mice on metal wire mesh for the collection of urine and feces in addition to monitoring food and water intake...

Background: Conventional methods for individually housing, training, and testing rodents in behavioral assays can impose constraints that may limit some kinds of experimental external validity, preempt environmental enrichment, impose heavy experimenter time burdens that limit...

There are instances when animals are introduced and expected to live alongside unfamiliar conspecifics within zoos, laboratories and wildlife sanctuaries. These pairings of unfamiliar animals may result in stress, trauma, or even death, in addition...

Surveys provide a low-cost means to obtain large amounts of data that are ideal for conducting exploratory research, and they are becoming an increasingly valuable tool in a veterinary context. We investigated whether surveys of...

Compared to peers raised in well-resourced, 'enriched' environments (‘EE’), female laboratory mice from conventional barren cages are more aggressive to their cage-mates, and less sociable with familiar non-cage-mates (especially if these too are from conventional...

Prevention of pain in rabbits is a priority for both welfare and validity of scientific data. We aimed to determine if the rabbit grimace scale (RbtGS) could be used as a viable, rapid assessment tool...