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. 
Doucet, M. R., Laevski, A. M., Doiron, J. A. et al. 2024. Locomotor activity as an effective measure of the severity of inflammatory arthritis in a mouse model. PLOS ONE 19(1), e0291399.

Objective Mouse models are valuable in preclinical studies of inflammatory arthritis. However, current methods for measuring disease severity or responses to treatment are not optimal. In this study a smart cage system using multiple sensors...

Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Bains, R. S., Forrest, H., Sillito, R. R. et al. 2023. Longitudinal home-cage automated assessment of climbing behavior shows sexual dimorphism and aging-related decrease in C57BL/6J healthy mice and allows early detection of motor impairment in the N171-82Q mouse model of Huntington’s disease. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1148172.

Monitoring the activity of mice within their home cage is proving to be a powerful tool for revealing subtle and early-onset phenotypes in mouse models. Video-tracking, in particular, lends itself to automated machine-learning technologies that...

Bellini, L., Schrank, M., Veladiano, I. A. et al. 2023. Retrospective comparison of the effects of laryngeal mask and endotracheal tube on some cardio-respiratory variables in pet rabbits undergoing anaesthesia for elective gonadectomy. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 10.

Endotracheal intubation in rabbits is challenging and supraglottic airway devices, such as laryngeal masks (LMA), represent an alternative as they are easy to insert, and do not stimulate the larynx requiring therefore a lighter plane...

Hube, D., Bill, J., Knop, E. S. et al. 2023. Physical injuries and hair corticosterone concentration in rabbit kits from single- and group-housed does kept on a commercial farm. Animals 13(2), 196.

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...

Kumar, P., Abubakar, A. A., Ahmed, M. A. et al. 2023. Electroencephalogram and physiological responses as affected by slaughter empathy in goats. Animals 13(6), 1100.

Recent advances in emotions and cognitive science make it imperative to assess the emotional stress in goats at the time of slaughter. The present study was envisaged to study the electroencephalogram and physiological responses as...

Lambertini, C., Grandis, A., De Silva, M. et al. 2023. The spritztube: A new device for extraglottic intubation of rabbits. Animals 13(1), 156.

The Spritztube (ST) is an extraglottic airway device developed for humans. The aim of the study was to design an ST for rabbits and to evaluate its feasibility. The study was divided into two phases...

Palumbo, G., Kunze, L. H., Oos, R. et al. 2023. Longitudinal studies on Alzheimer disease mouse models with multiple tracer PET/CT: Application of reduction and refinement principles in daily practice to safeguard animal welfare during progressive aging. Animals 13(11), 1812.

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...

Peruga, M., Kawala, B., Sarul, M. et al. 2023. Are currently selected laboratory animals useful in the research of how female hormones influence orthodontic biomechanics? Animals 13(4), 629.

Animal testing was and remains the only method of introducing a certain treatment and medical procedure on humans. On the other hand, animals have their rights resulting from applicable legal acts, including Directive 2010/63/EU and...

Vickery, H. M., Neal, R. A., Stergiadis, S. et al. 2023. Gradually weaning goat kids may improve weight gains while reducing weaning stress and increasing creep feed intakes. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10, 1200849.

Most dairy goat farms rear kids on ad libitum milk replacer; calf research suggests this improves growth and welfare, but solid feed intakes are problematic. Weaning can be gradual (incremental milk reduction) or abrupt (sudden...

Watanabe, S. 2023. Infrared thermography for non-invasive measurement of social inequality aversion in rodents and potential usefulness for future animal-friendly studies. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1131427.

Infrared thermography is a method that detects thermal radiation energy and can measure the body surface temperature of animals from a distance. While rectal temperature has traditionally been used to measure animals’ core temperature, thermal...

Wolter, A., Bucher, C. H., Kurmies, S. et al. 2023. A buprenorphine depot formulation provides effective sustained post-surgical analgesia for 72 h in mouse femoral fracture models. Scientific Reports 13(1), 3824.

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...

Attokaren, M. K., Jeong, N., Blanpain, L. et al. 2023. BrainWAVE: A flexible method for noninvasive stimulation of brain rhythms across species. ENeuro 10(2) ENEURO.0257-22.2022.

Rhythmic neural activity, which coordinates brain regions and neurons to achieve multiple brain functions, is impaired in many diseases. Despite the therapeutic potential of driving brain rhythms, methods to noninvasively target deep brain regions are...

Moëne, O. L., Larsson, M. 2023. A new tool for quantifying mouse facial expressions. ENeuro 10(2) ENEURO.0349-22.2022.

Facial expressions are an increasingly used tool to assess emotional experience and affective state during experimental procedures in animal models. Previous studies have successfully related specific facial features with different positive and negative valence situations...

Xu, J. J., Lucero, M. Y., Herndon, N. L. et al. 2023. Comparison of a minimally invasive transthoracic approach and a surgical method for intrapleural injection of tumor cells in mice. Comparative Medicine 73(2), 120–126.

Intrapleural injections can be used in mice to deliver therapeutic and diagnostic agents and to model human disease processes (for example, pleural fluid accumulation, malignant pleural disease, and lung cancers). In the context of establishing...

Martinez-Lopez, S., Angel-Gomis, E., Sanchez-Ardid, E. et al. 2023. The 3Rs in experimental liver disease. Animals 13(14), 2357.

Patients with cirrhosis present multiple physiological and immunological alterations that play a very important role in the development of clinically relevant secondary complications to the disease. Experimentation in animal models is essential to understand the...

Stevens, C., Hammonds, T., Hinchcliffe, J. et al. 2023. Report of the 2022 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group Meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 22(2), 91–100.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 29 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and share experiences of...

Szabo, B., Ringler, E. 2023. Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space. Animal Cognition 26(2), 537–549.

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is an ecologically important response which enables animals to avoid potentially harmful situations. Neophobia is a cognitive process by which individuals distinguish novelty from familiarity. In this study, we aimed...

Tanaka, Y., Nakata, T., Hibino, H. et al. 2023. Classification of multiple emotional states from facial expressions in head-fixed mice using a deep learning-based image analysis. PLOS ONE 18(7), e0288930.

Facial expressions are widely recognized as universal indicators of underlying internal states in most species of animals, thereby presenting as a non-invasive measure for assessing physical and mental conditions. Despite the advancement of artificial intelligence-assisted...

Guillaumin, A., Vlcek, B., Wallén-Mackenzie, Å. 2022. Improving well-being and survival in the 6-OHDA lesion model of Parkinson´s disease in mice: Literature review and step-by-step protocol. Scandinavian Journal of Animal Science 48(1), 1-21.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative motor disorder and primarily affects movement control but also a range of non-motor functions. With unknown etiology and lack of cure, much research is dedicated to unravel...

Zevnik, B., Jerchow, B., Buch, T. 2022. 3R measures in facilities for the production of genetically modified rodents. Lab Animal 51(6), 162-177.

Sociocultural changes in the human–animal relationship have led to increasing demands for animal welfare in biomedical research. The 3R concept is the basis for bringing this demand into practice: Replace animal experiments with alternatives where...

Spitzer, H. B., Meagher, R. K., Proudfoot, K. L. 2022. The impact of providing hiding spaces to farmed animals: A scoping review. PLOS ONE 17(11), e0277665.

Many wild animals perform hiding behaviours for a variety of reasons, such as evading predators or other conspecifics. Unlike their wild counterparts, farmed animals often live in relatively barren environments without the opportunity to hide...

Khalajzeyqami, Z., Grandi, A., Ferrini, E. et al. 2022. Pivotal role of micro-CT technology in setting up an optimized lung fibrosis mouse model for drug screening. PLOS ONE 17(6), e0270005.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive disease with no curative pharmacological treatment. The most used animal model of IPF for anti-fibrotic drug screening is bleomycin (BLM)-induced lung fibrosis. However, several issues have been reported...

MacLellan, A., Nazal, B., Young et al. 2022. Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: Investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states. Royal Society Open Science 9(11), 221083.

Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one...

Novak, J., Jaric, I., Rosso, M. et al. 2022. Handling method affects measures of anxiety, but not chronic stress in mice. Scientific Reports 12(1), 20938.

Studies in mice have shown that less aversive handling methods (e.g. tunnel or cup handling) can reduce behavioural measures of anxiety in comparison to picking mice up by their tail. Despite such evidence, tail handling...