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. 

Leptin is a hormone that plays a key role in controlling food intake and energy homeostasis. Skeletal muscle is an important target for leptin and recent studies have shown that leptin deficiency may lead to...

An uncontrolled reproduction of animals in human hands should be avoided. To meet this goal, animals are widely castrated, i.e., the gonads are completely removed. Since the gonads are the most important source of sex...

Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) of gene expression in live animals is a powerful method for monitoring development, tumor growth, infections, healing, and other progressive, long-term biological processes. BLI remains an effective approach for reducing the number...

Longitudinal studies on mouse models related to Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology play an important role in the investigation of therapeutic targets to help pharmaceutical research in the development of new drugs and in the attempt...

In an attempt to develop more effective surgical implantation methods for fish, surgical incisions typical of those made for implanting micro-acoustic transmitters into the peritoneal cavity were evaluated on a weekly basis for healing progression...

Reliable methods for identifying rodents play an important role in ensuring the success of preclinical studies. However, animal identification remains a trivial laboratory routine that is not often discussed, despite the fact that more than...

Tagging salmon smolts to provide information about the timing of outmigration has been a common approach to monitor phenology and model the risk of encountering stressors. However, the validity of tagging has come under scrutiny...

Partial bile duct ligation (pBDL) is considered a well-tolerated cholestatic model. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most widely used tools in noninvasive imaging. However, no systematic studies have reported the possible effects...

In aquatic ecology, studies have commonly employed a tagging technique known as visible implant elastomer (VIE). This method has not been widely adopted by the zebrafish research community and also lacks refinement with regard to...

Identification marking mice commonly involves ear-punching with or without anaesthetic, or tail-marking with ink. To identify which is most humane, we marked weanling male BALB/c mice using ear-punching (EP), ear-punching with anaesthetic EMLATM cream (EP+A)...

Chronic vascular access devices are widely used in a variety of species for repeated blood sampling or substance administration. Jugular catheters are commonly used for studying addiction-related behaviors in rats. Rats with catheters have historically...

The increasing potential for radiation exposure from nuclear accidents or terrorist activities has intensified the need to develop pharmacologic countermeasures against injury from total body irradiation (TBI). Many initial experiments to develop and test these...

During the development of potential new medicines or agrochemicals, an assessment of the safety profile to humans and environmental species is conducted using a range of different in silico and in vitro techniques in conjunction...

Tattooing traumatizes the skin, which can result in microbial infections with the severity ranging from minor to life-threating septicemia. Additionally, the metals in colored tattoo ink are known to cause dermal inflammation in some people...

Commercial mouse chow is designed to provide a complete, nutrient-rich diet, and it can contain upwards of 100 mg/kg manganese, an essential mineral. Manganese acts as a relaxation time-shortening contrast agent for both T1 and T2...

This poster compares the model success rates using 2 different housing regimes during recovery from surgery. Catheters were placed in the bile duct to collect bile; a second catheter was secured into the duodenum where...

Demarking individual animals within a group is often required in research. However, the process of invasive tagging induces stress and if a tag becomes detached it may wound the animal and/or prevent identification. Photo identification...

Ear tagging is perceived as less painful or stressful than tattooing and therefore is generally considered less harmful or costly to welfare. However, ear tags are more difficult to read than tattoos and can fall...

Vascular catheterization is becoming a popular technique in laboratory rodents, facilitating repetitive blood sampling and infusion in individual animals. In mice, catheterization is complicated by their small body size, which may increase the risk of...

Social housing of laboratory rodents is recommended whenever possible to encourage natural behavior and social dynamics. Several identification methods are used to distinguish rodents from one another. One of the most common means of identifying...

Endotracheal tube (ETT) management is an essential technique in handling mice with mechanical ventilators. Malposition into bronchi causes not only lethal complications for them but also less efficient mechanical ventilation. However, in general, it is...

Since rats lack a gall bladder, they are an ideal model for investigating continuous biliary excretion and biotransformation. The design and implementation of a modified tail cuff and cannula system introduced at Covance permits the...

A batch of 1 sea winter pre-spawning adult Salmo salar from the Bush river in Northern Ireland, U.K., were gastrically tagged with large (13-mm diameter) and small (9-mm diameter) dummy acoustic telemetry tags alongside untagged...

Adult return rates for wild Atlantic salmon Salmo salar smolts captured in a rotary screw trap and tagged with coded wire (CW) tags were compared with a control group, using detections from passive integrated transponder...

This feature describes creative ways in which technology can be used to study animals within their home cages, eliminating the need to handle, restrain, and separate them from cage mates. One example includes voluntary brain...