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. 
Arechavala-Lopez, P., Caballero-Froilán, J. C., Jiménez-García, M. et al. 2020. Enriched environments enhance cognition, exploratory behaviour and brain physiological functions of Sparus aurata. Scientific Reports 10, 11252.

Environmental enrichment is considered as a recommended tool to guarantee or improve the welfare of captive fish. This study demonstrates for the first time that structural environmental enrichment enhances cognition, exploratory behaviour and brain physiological...

Meagher, R. K., Strazhnik, E., von Keyserlingk, M. et al. 2020. Assessing the motivation to learn in cattle. Scientific Reports 10, 6847.

Cognitive challenges may provide a form of enrichment to improve the welfare of captive animals. Primates, dolphins, and goats will voluntarily participate in learning tasks suggesting that these are rewarding, but little work has been...

Hambrecht, S., Oerke, A.‐K., Heistermann, M. et al. 2020. Diurnal variation of salivary cortisol in captive African elephants (Loxodonta africana) under routine management conditions and in relation to a translocation event. Zoo Biology 39(3), 186–196.

The present study assessed the diurnal variation in salivary cortisol in captive African elephants during routine management (baseline) and in relation to a potential stressor (translocation) to evaluate to what extent acute stress may affect...

Blok, J., Black, D. A., Petersen, J. et al. 2020. Environmental enrichment rescues visually-mediated behavior in Ten-m3 knockout mice during an early critical period. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 14, 22.

Environmental enrichment (EE) has been shown to promote neural plasticity. Its capacity to induce functional repair in models which exhibit profound sensory deficits due to aberrant axonal guidance has not been well-characterized. Ten-m3 knockout (KO)...

Reinhardt, V. (ed.) 2020. It’s Okay to Cry - Discussions by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum [LAREF], Volume V. Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC.

This is the 5th volume of selected discussions that took place on the electronic Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum between February 2016 and December 2019. The forum was created in October 2002; it allows...

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...

Blackburn, N., Cronshaw, G., Mitchell, M. 2020. Environmental enrichment for a small colony of rats. Animal Technology and Welfare 19(2), 158.

Due to limited space and resource for equipment, we came up with some easy and cost-effective ways to improve enrichment for the rat colony. Since implementing our protocol for forage feeding and out of cage...

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...

Krueger, L. D., Thurston, S. E., Kirk, J. et al. 2020. Enrichment preferences of singly housed zebrafish (Danio rerio). JAALAS 59(2), 148–155.

Despite the increasing popularity of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as an animal model, the environmental enrichment preferences of this species have been largely unexplored. We sought to determine the preferences of mature female zebrafish that were...

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...

Khoo, S. Y.-S., Correia, V., Uhrig, A. 2020. Nesting material enrichment reduces severity of overgrooming-related self-injury in individually housed rats. Laboratory Animals 54(6), 546-558.

Individual or singly-housing laboratory rats is common in many animal facilities, but has an adverse impact on the welfare of this social species. It has previously been shown that a small proportion of individually housed...

LaFleur, R. A., Williams-Fritze, M. J. 2020. Now hear this: Caring for chinchillas in research. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(5) (September/October), 8-12.

This article describes the authors’ experience with the housing, social housing, husbandry, handling, and environmental enrichment of chinchillas in laboratories.

Rodgers, J. C., Ricart Arbona, R. J., Lieggi, C. et al. 2020. Evaluation of cotton dental rolls as environmental enrichment for mice. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(5) (September/October), 70-71.

Historically, we provided 2 compressed cotton squares for nesting and enrichment. The logistics of managing nesting material distribution, disposal, and costs are major considerations for our program, which provides husbandry to approximately 60,000 rodent cages...

Gabriel, P., Mastracchio, T., Bordner, K. et al. 2020. Impact of enriched environment during adolescence on adult social behavior, hippocampal synaptic density and dopamine D2 receptor expression in rats. Physiology & Behavior, 226, 113133.

Environmental enrichment (EE) is one experimental manipulation that induces changes in the brain. However, it is important to distinguish between physical and social components of enrichment. To this end we established four groups of rats...

Keymoradzadeh, A., Hedayati Ch, M., Abedinzade, M. et al. 2020. Enriched environment effect on lipopolysaccharide-induced spatial learning, memory impairment and hippocampal inflammatory cytokine levels in male rats. Behavioural Brain Research 394, 112814.

Neuro-inflammation is responsible for cognitive impairments and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. In this study, we aimed to investigate the enriched environment (EE) effect on learning and memory impairment as well as on pro-inflammatory...

Lang, G. P. S. A., Rose, P. E., Nash, S. M. et al. 2020. The nocturnal activity of a commonly housed rodent: How African pygmy dormice (Graphiurus murinus) respond to an enriched environment? Journal of Veterinary Behavior 38, 82-88.

Exotic rodents are becoming increasingly popular in industry; however, there is limited empirical evidence to guide husbandry practices. African pygmy dormice (Graphiurus murinus) are typical in this respect. This research aimed to determine the effect...

Modlinska, K., Chrzanowska, A., Pisula, W. 2020. Variability of enriched environment does not enhance the enrichment effect on food neophobia in rats (Rattus norvegicus). Behavioural Processes 180, 104221.

Many studies report differences between animals raised in an enriched environment and those living in standard conditions. Animals reared in enriched conditions demonstrate better memory and learning abilities, increased activity, reduced level of anxiety, etc...

Tomasello, D. L., Sive, H. 2020. Noninvasive multielectrode array for brain and spinal cord local field potential recordings from live zebrafish larvae. Zebrafish 17(4), 271-277.

Zebrafish are an important and expanding experimental system for brain research. We describe a noninvasive electrophysiology technique that can be used in living larvae to measure spontaneous activity in the brain and spinal cord simultaneously...

van der Vinne, V., Pothecary, C. A., Wilcox, S. L. et al. 2020. Continuous and non-invasive thermography of mouse skin accurately describes core body temperature patterns, but not absolute core temperature. Scientific Reports 10(1), 20680.

Body temperature is an important physiological parameter in many studies of laboratory mice. Continuous assessment of body temperature has traditionally required surgical implantation of a telemeter, but this invasive procedure adversely impacts animal welfare. Near-infrared...

Vogt, M. A., Mertens, S., Serba, S. et al. 2020. The ‘Cage Climber’ - A new enrichment for use in large-dimensioned mouse facilities. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 230, 105078.

Environmental Enrichment has been shown in experimental contexts to have clear and often beneficial effects on animal physiology and behavior. Housing prior to experiments can represent a large proportion of an animal’s living conditions, and...

Cortese, M., Brščić, M., Ughelini, N. et al. 2020. Effectiveness of stocking density reduction on mitigating lameness in a Charolais finishing beef cattle farm. Animals 10(7), 1147.

This study aimed at assessing whether a reduction in stocking density (SKD) would mitigate lameness and positively affect the performance and health of Charolais bulls in an Italian commercial farm. Bulls were distributed in groups...

Frahm, S., Di Giminiani, P., Stanitznig, A. et al. 2020. Nociceptive threshold of calves and goat kids undergoing injection of clove oil or isoeugenol for disbudding. Animals 10(7), 1228.

In this preliminary study, we compared changes in mechanical nociceptive thresholds (MNT) of calves and goat kids injected with clove oil or isoeugenol under the horn bud as a potential, more welfare-friendly alternative to hot-iron...

Meikle, M. N., Arévalo, A. P., Schlapp, G. et al. 2020. Long-term effect of environmental enrichment on reproductive performance of Swiss Webster mice and their female offspring. Animals 10(8), 1438.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an environmental enrichment (EE) plan on the reproductive performance of Swiss Webster mice and their female offspring used as recipients for embryo transfer. A...

Ordóñez-Grande, B., Guerreiro, P. M., Sanahuja, I. et al. 2020. Evaluation of an acute osmotic stress in European sea bass via skin mucus biomarkers. Animals 10(9), 1546.

European sea bass is a marine teleost which can inhabit a broad range of environmental salinities. So far, no research has studied the physiological response of this fish to salinity challenges using modifications in skin...

Mills, P. C., Ghodasara, P., Satake, N. et al. 2020. A novel transdermal ketoprofen formulation provides effective analgesia to calves undergoing amputation dehorning. Animals 10(12), 2442.

There is a critical need to ensure that all cattle undergoing surgical husbandry procedures are provided effective pain relief. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are most commonly used, and typically are administered by intramuscular (IM) injection...