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. 
Wolfensohn, S., Shotton, J., Bowley, H. et al. 2018. Assessment of welfare in zoo animals: Towards optimum quality of life. Animals 8(7), 110.

Zoos are required to maintain a high standard of animal welfare, and this can be assessed using a combination of resource-based and animal-based indices usually divided into behavioural indicators, physiological indicators and clinical/pathological signs. Modern...

Battini, M., Barbieri, S., Vieira, A. et al. 2018. The use of qualitative behaviour assessment for the on-farm welfare assessment of dairy goats. Animals 8(7), 123.

This research investigated whether using qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) with a fixed list of descriptors may be related to quantitative animal- (ABM) and resource-based (RBM) measures included in the AWIN (Animal Welfare Indicators) welfare assessment...

Munoz, C., Campbell, A., Hemsworth, P. et al. 2018. Animal-based measures to assess the welfare of extensively managed ewes. Animals 8(1), 2.

The reliability and feasibility of 10 animal-based measures of ewe welfare were examined for use in extensive sheep production systems. Measures were: Body condition score (BCS), rumen fill, fleece cleanliness, fleece condition, skin lesions, tail...

Oliver, V. L., Thurston, S. E., Lofgren, J. L. 2018. Using cageside measures to evaluate analgesic efficacy in mice (Mus musculus) after surgery. JAALAS 57(2), 186-201.

Recent studies have revealed some of the most frequently used analgesics in mice are not effectively treating postoperative pain. Our laboratory sought to compare and assess the validity and reliability of 2 cageside pain assessments...

Jones, S., Neville, V., Higgs, L. et al. 2018. Assessing animal affect: An automated and self-initiated judgement bias task based on natural investigative behaviour. Scientific Reports 8, 12400.

Scientific methods for assessing animal affect, especially affective valence (positivity or negativity), allow us to evaluate animal welfare and the effectiveness of 3Rs Refinements designed to improve wellbeing. Judgement bias tasks measure valence; however, task-training...

Mei, J., Riedel, N., Grittner, U. et al. 2018. Body temperature measurement in mice during acute illness: Implantable temperature transponder versus surface infrared thermometry. Scientific Reports 8, 3526.

Body temperature is a valuable parameter in determining the wellbeing of laboratory animals. However, using body temperature to refine humane endpoints during acute illness generally lacks comprehensiveness and exposes to inter-observer bias. Here we compared...

Sneddon, L. U., Lopez-Luna, J., Wolfenden, D. et al. 2018. Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters. Animal Sentience 21(1).

Recent empirical studies have reported evidence that many aquatic species, including fish, cephalopods and crustaceans, have the capacity for nociception and pain, and that their welfare should be taken into consideration. Some sceptics, rejecting the...

Chotard, H., Ioannou, S., Davila-Ross, M. 2018. Infrared thermal imaging: Positive and negative emotions modify the skin temperatures of monkey and ape faces. American Journal of Primatology 80(5), e22863.

Facial thermography has enabled researchers to noninvasively and continuously measure the changes of a range of emotional states in humans. The present work used this novel technology to study the effect of positive and negative...

Jayson, S., Harding, L., Michaels, C. J. et al. 2018. Development of a body condition score for the mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax). Zoo Biology 37(3), 196–205.

The Critically Endangered mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) has undergone drastic population decline due to habitat loss, hunting, invasive species, and chytridiomycosis. In response, several partner institutions initiated a conservation breeding program. It is important...

Gómez, Y., Bieler, R., Hankele, A. K. 2018. Evaluation of visible eye white and maximum eye temperature as non-invasive indicators of stress in dairy cows. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 198, 1-8.

The aim of this study was to investigate if visible eye white and eye temperature measurements are feasible non-invasive physiological indicators of acute stress in cows when they are exposed to cattle crush treatment for...

de Boyer des Roches, A., Lussert, A., Faure, M. et al. 2018. Dairy cows under experimentally-induced Escherichia coli mastitis show negative emotional states assessed through Qualitative Behaviour Assessment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 206, 1-11.

Mastitis and associated pain have been identified as a major health and welfare problem affecting dairy cows, however little is known about how cows emotionally experience this illness. Qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) is a ‘whole...

Lee, C., Cafe, L. M., Robinson, S. L. et al. 2018. Anxiety influences attention bias but not flight speed and crush score in beef cattle. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 205, 210-215.

Attentional biases towards threatening stimuli are increased when animals are in anxious states. An ability to assess negatively valanced affective states such as anxiety are important as they may be related to poor welfare. Flight...

Toaff-Rosenstein, R. L., Tucker, C. B. 2018. The sickness response at and before clinical diagnosis of spontaneous bovine respiratory disease. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 201, 85-92.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is often diagnosed in feedlots after observing behavioral changes such as anorexia, with fever confirmatory. However, this method has poor diagnostic accuracy compared to postmortem lung lesions. Little is known about...

Bailoo, J. D., Murphy, E., Varholick, J. A. et al. 2018. Evaluation of the effects of space allowance on measures of animal welfare in laboratory mice. Scientific Reports 8, 713.

We studied how space allowance affects measures of animal welfare in mice by systematically varying group size and cage type across three levels each in both males and females of two strains of mice (C57BL/6ByJ...

Tomeo, O. B., Sosnowski, M. J., Benitez, M. E. et al. 2018. The relationship between self-directed anxiety behaviors and cortisol in socially housed capuchin monkeys (Cebus [Sapajus] apella). American Journal of Primatology 80(S1), 32 (40th Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists Scientific Program, Abstract #64).

Non‐human primates are excellent models for the study of human social anxiety. Both humans and non‐human primates form complex relationships with others, and exhibit signs of distress when those relationships become unstable. Self‐directed behaviors, such...

Cannas, S., Palestrini, C., Canali, E. et al. 2018. Thermography as a non-invasive measure of stress and fear of humans in sheep. Animals 8(9), 146.

No data have been published on the use of infrared thermography (IRT) to evaluate sheep emotions. We assessed whether this technique can be used as a non-invasive measure of negative emotions. Two voluntary animal approach...

Hocking, A. J., Elliot, D., Hua, J. et al. 2018. Administering fixed oral doses of curcumin to rats through voluntary consumption. JAALAS 57(5), 508–512.

Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from turmeric, has a wide variety of therapeutic benefits including antiinflammatory, antioxidative, and chemopreventative effects. Oral gavage is widely performed to administer curcumin in laboratory rodents in several experimental models. Although...

Fiebig, K., Jourdan, T., Kock, M. H. et al. 2018. Evaluation of infrared thermography for temperature measurement in adult male NMRI nude mice. JAALAS 57(6), 715–724.

Temperature monitoring during critical care provides important data required to guide treatment delivery. Body temperature is an easily quantified clinical parameter that can yield much information concerning the health of an animal. In research settings...

Clark, T. S., Pandolfo, L. M., Marshall, C. M. et al. 2018. Body condition scoring for adult zebrafish (Danio rerio). JAALAS 57(6), 698–702.

Body condition scoring (BCS) is a simple, rapid, noninvasive tool used to assess body condition in animals. In this study, we developed and validated a diagram-based BCS for adult zebrafish (Danio rerio), a popular research...

Grant, E. P., Brown, A., Wickham, S. L. et al. 2018. What can the quantitative and qualitative behavioural assessment of videos of sheep moving through an autonomous data capture system tell us about welfare? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 31-39.

Sheep can be exposed to a variety of challenges and failure to adapt to these challenges can compromise their health and wellbeing. Regular monitoring of stock on large-scale or extensive systems may not always be...

Raya, J., Neves Girardi , C. E., Hipólide, D. C. 2019. Corticosterone assimilation by a voluntary oral administration in palatable food to rats. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 37-41.

Drug delivery in research on nonhuman animals in the laboratory is still challenging because it is usually invasive and stressful. Stress-free voluntary oral drug administration in water lacks precise control of dose and timing of...

Byrd, R., Boyd, S., Buckmaster, C. 2018. Rat thunder jacket— A zen experience. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(3) (September), 55-57.

Germ-free rats are fairly uncommon, relative to germ-free mice, and restraining these animals safely and effectively for compound administration and blood collection can be challenging. There are many commercially available varieties of restraint devices, but...

Häger, C., Keubler, L. M., Talbot, S. R. et al. 2018. Running in the wheel: Defining individual severity levels in mice. PLOS Biology 16(10), e2006159.

The fine-scale grading of the severity experienced by animals used in research constitutes a key element of the 3Rs (replace, reduce, and refine) principles and a legal requirement in the European Union Directive 2010/63/EU. Particularly...

Unakafov, A. M., Möller, S., Kagan, I. et al. 2018. Using imaging photoplethysmography for heart rate estimation in non-human primates. PLOS ONE 13(8), e0202581.

For humans and for non-human primates heart rate is a reliable indicator of an individual’s current physiological state, with applications ranging from health checks to experimental studies of cognitive and emotional state. In humans, changes...

Barker, T. H., George, R. P., Howarth, G. S. et al. 2017. Assessment of housing density, space allocation and social hierarchy of laboratory rats on behavioural measures of welfare. PLOS ONE 12(9), e0185135.

Minimum space allowances for laboratory rats are legislated based on weight and stocking rates, with the understanding that increased housing density encourages crowding stress. However, there is little evidence for these recommendations, especially when considering...