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. 
Skinner, M., Ceuppens, P., White, P. et al. 2019. Social-housing and use of double-decker cages in rat telemetry studies. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 96, 87-94.

Rat telemetry is widely used for biomedical research purposes and is used routinely in early pre-clinical drug development to screen for the potential cardiovascular risk of candidate drugs. Historically, these studies have been conducted in...

Lofgren, J., Miller, A. L., Shan Lee, C. C. et al. 2018. Analgesics promote welfare and sustain tumour growth in orthotopic 4T1 and B16 mouse cancer models. Laboratory Animals 52(4), 351-364.

Murine orthotopic cancer models often require surgery, potentially causing pain or distress. However, analgesics are often withheld because they may alter tumour development. Two orthotopically implanted cancers were investigated in mice pre-treated with meloxicam (10...

Evangelista-Vaz, R., Bergadano, A., Arras, M. et al. 2018. Analgesic efficacy of subcutaneous–oral dosage of tramadol after surgery in C57BL/6J mice. JAALAS 57(4), 368-375.

This study investigated the analgesic activity of tramadol in female C57BL/6J mice by using a single subcutaneous injection (25 mg/kg) of tramadol combined with the same dose given in drinking water for 24 h. We...

Beninson, J. A., Lofgren, J. L., Lester, P. A. et al. 2018. Analgesic efficacy and hematologic effects of robenacoxib in mice. JAALAS 57(3), 258-267.

NSAID analgesics may confound models that require inflammation to mimic disease development in humans. This effect presents a challenge for veterinary staff and investigators, because surgery is often necessary to create mouse models of disease...

Fox, L., Mans, C. 2018. Analgesic efficacy and safety of buprenorphine in chinchillas (Chinchilla lanigera). JAALAS 57(3), 286-290.

Buprenorphine is routinely used in chinchillas at reported doses of 0.01 to 0.1 mg/kg IM or SC. However, these dose recommendations are based on anecdotal reports or extrapolation from studies in other species. Therefore, the...

Evenson, E. A., Mans, C. 2018. Analgesic efficacy and safety of hydromorphone in chinchillas (Chinchilla lanigera). JAALAS 57(3), 282-285.

Limited information is available regarding the efficacy of opioid analgesics in chinchillas. Here we sought to evaluate the analgesic efficacy and safety of hydromorphone in chinchillas. In a randomized, controlled, blind, complete crossover design, hydromorphone...

France, L. K., Vermillion, M. S., Garrett, C. M. 2018. Comparison of direct and indirect methods of measuring arterial blood pressure in healthy male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). JAALAS 57(1), 64-69.

Blood pressure is a critical parameter for evaluating cardiovascular health, assessing effects of drugs and procedures, monitoring physiologic status during anesthesia, and making clinical decisions. The placement of an arterial catheter is the most direct...

Clarkson, J. M., Dwyer, D. M., Flecknell, P. A. et al. 2019. Handling method alters the hedonic value of reward in laboratory mice. Scientific Reports 8, 2448.

Mice are the most widely used model species for drug discovery and scientific research. Consequently, it is important to refine laboratory procedures and practices to ensure high standards of welfare and scientific data quality. Recent...

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...

Ash, H., Smith, T. E., Knight, S. et al. 2018. Measuring physiological stress in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus): Validation of a salivary cortisol collection and assay technique. Physiology & Behavior 185, 14-22.

Cortisol levels are often used as a physiological measure of the stress response in captive primates, with noninvasive measures of this being an important step in welfare assessment. We report a method of collecting saliva...

Swan, A. 2018. Refining mouse handling - do we or don't we? An animal technologist's perspective. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(2), 130-131.

Recent research in the industry identified that picking up mice in a tunnel or cupping them in the hand significantly reduces their stress levels. As Animal Tecgnologists, we could see advantages and disadvantages with this...

Baker, S., Knight, E., Pellett, S. et al. 2018. Spider and chips: The use of internal Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips as a minimally invasive method to measure internal body temperatures in invertebrates. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(1), 1-7.

Internal RFID transponders have been used in vertebrates for many years, however studies into their use in invertebrates are less well represented in the literature. The use of RFID transponders for internal temperature measurement represents...

LaFollette, M. R., O’Haire, M. E., Cloutier, S. et al. 2018. A happier rat pack: The impacts of tickling pet store rats on human-animal interactions and rat welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 203, 92-102.

Rats find initial interactions with humans frightening, which can lead to negative affect, and poor welfare. A handling technique called “tickling”, which mimics rat rough-and-tumble play, can be used to reduce these negative effects. When...

Jirkof, P., Arras, M., Cesarovic, N. 2018. Tramadol:Paracetamol in drinking water for treatment of post-surgical pain in laboratory mice. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 198, 95-100.

In the search for stress-free analgesia administration for laboratory mice suffering pain, oral delivery of Tramadol:Paracetamol (T:P) shows great promise. Here, we monitored the analgesic efficacy and side effects of a T:P combination administered solely...

Gottlieb, D. H., Del Rosso, L, Sheikhi, F. et al. 2018. Personality, environmental stressors, and diarrhea in Rhesus macaques: An interactionist perspective. American Journal of Primatology 80(12), e22908.

Previous research has repeatedly shown both personality and psychological stress to predict gastrointestinal disorders and chronic diarrhea in humans. The goal of the present research was to evaluate the role of personality, as well as...

Linden, J.B., Capitanio, J.P., McCowan, B. et al. 2018. Coping style and cortisol levels in infancy predict hair cortisol following new group formation in captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). American Journal of Primatology 80(12), e22938.

Social instability in primate groups has been used as a model to understand how social stress affects human populations. While it is well established that individual cercopithecines have different temperaments or personalities, little is known...

Pomerantz, O., Nyandwi, S., Baker, K., 2018. Providing feeding enrichment by hand mitigates anxiety among laboratory-housed rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). American Journal of Primatology 80(S1), 20 (40th Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists Scientific Program, Abstract #26).

Some husbandry procedures may be perceived as aversive by cage‐housed rhesus macaques. We assessed whether providing feeding enrichment by hand as opposed to placing it on a caging surface decreases anxiety responses to daily husbandry...

Nunamaker, E. A., Goldman, J. L., Adams, C. R. et al. 2018. Evaluation of analgesic efficacy of meloxicam and 2 formulations of buprenorphine after laparotomy in female Sprague-Dawley rats. JAALAS 57(5), 498–507.

Managing postoperative pain in rodents is an important part of any animal care and use program, and identifying an optimal analgesic plan for a surgical procedure is critical to providing for animal welfare. Opioids and...

LaFollette, M. R., O’Haire, M. E., Cloutier, S. et al. 2018. Practical rat tickling: Determining an efficient and effective dosage of heterospecific play. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 82-91.

Laboratory rats may experience stress during handling which can reduce their welfare. Rat tickling, a handling technique that mimics aspects of rat rough-and-tumble play, has been found to induce positive affect based on production of...

Neely, C., Lane, C., Torres, J. et al. 2018. The effect of gentle handling on depressive-like behavior in adult male mice: Considerations for human and rodent interactions in the laboratory. Behavioural Neurology 2018, 2976014.

Environmental factors play a significant role in well-being of laboratory animals. Regulations and guidelines recommend, if not require, that stressors such as bright lighting, smells, and noises are eliminated or reduced to maximize animal well-being...

Collymore, C., Kent, L., Ahn, S. K. et al. 2018. Humane endpoints for guinea pigs used for Mycobacterium tuberculosis vaccine research. Comparative Medicine 68(1), 41–47.

Guinea pigs are a commonly used model for tuberculosis vaccine research. Loss of body weight is the most frequently described humane endpoint for animals used in these studies. During a chronic study, we noted labored...

Wolfe, A. M., Rahman, M., McFadden, D. G. et al. 2018. Refinement and successful implementation of a scoring system for myxomatosis in a susceptible rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) model. Comparative Medicine 68(4), 280–285.

Myxoma virus is a member of Leporipoxviridae whose tropism is tightly restricted to lagomorphs. In susceptible Oryctolagus rabbits, the virus causes a highly lethal disease known as myxomatosis, which begins as a localized infection but...

Toth, L. A. 2018. Identifying and implementing endpoints for geriatric mice. Comparative Medicine 68(6), 439–451.

The types of changes in physical appearance and behavior that occur in elderly people similarly develop in elderly animals. Signs and symptoms that might cause concern in younger people or mice may be normal in...

O’Rourke, D. P., Baccanale, C. L., Stoskopf, M. K. 2018. Nontraditional laboratory animal species (cephalopods, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds). ILAR Journal 59(2), 168-176.

Aquatic vertebrates and cephalopods, amphibians, reptiles, and birds offer unique safety and occupational health challenges for laboratory animal personnel. This paper discusses environmental, handling, and zoonotic concerns associated with these species.

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...