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. 
Travain, T., Valsecchi, P. 2021. Infrared thermography in the study of animals’ emotional responses: A critical review. Animals 11(9), 2510.

Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the...

MacLellan, A., Fureix, C., Polanco, A. et al. 2021. Can animals develop depression? An overview and assessment of “depression-like” states. Behaviour 158(14/15), 1303–1353.

Describing certain animal behaviours as 'depression-like' or 'depressive' has become common across several fields of research. These typically involve unusually low activity or unresponsiveness and/or reduced interest in pleasure (anhedonia). While the term 'depression-like' carefully...

Campbell, D. L. M., Lee, C. 2021. A perspective on strategic enrichment for brain development: Is this the key to animal happiness? Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 720422.

Livestock animals are sentient beings with cognitive and emotional capacities and their brain development, similar to humans and other animal species, is affected by their surrounding environmental conditions. Current intensive production systems, through the restrictions...

Brandão, M. L., Dorigão-Guimarães, F., Bolognesi, M. C. et al. 2021. Understanding behaviour to improve the welfare of an ornamental fish. Journal of Fish Biology 99(3), 726-739.

Some common practices in aquaculture, ornamental trade and fish facilities may disturb the behavioural repertoire of fish and its natural adaptive value, reducing welfare and impairing fish production. Hence, it is necessary to understand fish...

Furumoto, K., Ogita, K., Kamisaka, T. et al. 2021. Effects of multimodal analgesic protocol, with buprenorphine and meloxicam, on mice well-being: A dose finding study. Animals 11(12), 3420.

The anesthetic or analgesic agent of choice, route and frequency of anesthetic or analgesic administration, and stressors induce distress during the perioperative period. We evaluated a multimodal analgesic protocol using buprenorphine and meloxicam on the...

Verjat, A., Devienne, P., Rödel, H. G. et al. 2021. More exploratory house mice judge an ambiguous situation more negatively. Animal Cognition 24(1), 53–64.

Exploration tendency, one of the most investigated animal personality traits, may be driven by either positive (when seeking interesting information) or negative (to reduce the uncertainty of the environment) affective/emotional profiles. To disentangle the valence...

Goldsborough, Z., van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Kolff, K. W. T. et al. 2020. Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) console a bereaved mother? Primates volume 61(1), 93–102.

Comparative thanatology encompasses the study of death-related responses in non-human animals and aspires to elucidate the evolutionary origins of human behavior in the context of death. Many reports have revealed that humans are not the...

Espinoza, C., Lomax, S., Windsor, P. 2020. The effect of topical anaesthesia on the cortisol responses of calves undergoing dehorning. Animals 10(2), 312.

Dehorning causes pain and distress to cattle, and there is a need to provide effective and practical analgesia to improve animal welfare. We conducted an experiment to determine the effect of a modified post-operative topical...

Shepley, E., Lensink, J., Leruste, H. et al. 2020. The effect of free-stall versus strawyard housing and access to pasture on dairy cow locomotor activity and time budget. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 224, 104928.

Dairy housing systems can have major implications on how freely cows move within their environment and how fully they can express their behavioral repertoire, impacting overall welfare. To ensure housing systems are meeting the needs...

Ross, S. R., Leinwand, J. G. 2020. A review of research in primate sanctuaries. Biology Letters 16(4), 1620200033.

While non-human primate studies have long been conducted in laboratories, and more recently at zoological parks, sanctuaries are increasingly considered a viable setting for research. Accredited sanctuaries in non-range countries house thousands of primates formerly...

Rogers, L., Sales, E., Shamsi, S. et al. 2020. Aggressive encounters lead to negative affective state in fish. PLOS ONE 15(4), e0231330.

Animals show various behavioural, neural and physiological changes in response to losing aggressive encounters. Here, we investigated affective state, which are emotion-like processes influenced by positive or negative experiences, in a territorial fish following aggressive...

Inoue, N., Shimada, M. 2020. Comparisons of activity budgets, interactions, and social structures in captive and wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Animals 10(6), 1063.

Chimpanzees in zoos with sufficient and appropriate environmental enrichment devices are expected to exhibit behaviors, interactions, and societies similar to those in the wild. In this study, we compared the activity budgets of each observed...

Pinheiro Machado, T. M., Pinheiro Machado Filho, L. C., Daros, R. R. et al. 2020. Licking and agonistic interactions in grazing dairy cows as indicators of preferential companies. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 227, 104994.

The quality of the social environment should be studied as one of the welfare components of dairy herds. Licking and preference between cows are important socio-positive experiences in this context.The aims of this study were...

Foley, P. L., Kendall, L. V., Turner, P. V. 2019. Clinical management of pain in rodents. Comparative Medicine 69(6), 468–489.

The use of effective regimens for mitigating pain remain underutilized in research rodents despite the general acceptance of both the ethical imperative and regulatory requirements intended to maximize animal welfare. Factors contributing to this gap...

Smith J. C. 2019. A review of strain and sex differences in response to pain and analgesia in mice. Comparative Medicine 69(6), 490–500.

Pain and its alleviation are currently a highly studied issue in human health. Research on pain and response to analgesia has evolved to include the effects of genetics, heritability, and sex as important components in...

Barber, J. 2020. Getting to know Siamese fighting fish. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(3) (May/June), 26-27.

This article describes the biology, husbandry, and care of Siamese fighting fish (also known as the betta fish) at Columbia University.

Allanic, M., Hayashi, M., Matsuzawa, T., 2020. Investigating the function of mutual grooming in captive bonobos (Pan paniscus) and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Folia Primatologica 91, 481-494.

Social grooming is often exchanged between individuals in many primate species. Rates of bidirectional (or simultaneous mutual) grooming vary across primate species, and its function is not yet fully understood. For example, mutual grooming is...

Lecorps, B., Nogues, E., von Keyserlingk, M. A. G. et al. 2020. Pessimistic dairy calves are more vulnerable to pain-induced anhedonia. PLOS ONE 15(11), e0242100.

Pain induces deficits in appreciation of rewards (i.e. anhedonia) and variation in response to pain may be partly explained by individual differences in general expectations (i.e. optimism). Dairy calves are routinely subjected to painful procedures...

Ruberto, T., Talbot, J. L., Reddon, A. R. 2020. Head up displays are a submission signal in the group-living daffodil cichlid. Behavioural Processes 181, 104271.

Dominance hierarchies can reduce conflict within social groups and agonistic signals can help to establish and maintain these hierarchies. Behaviours produced by subordinates in response to aggression are often assumed to function as signals of...

Yamanashi, Y., Bando, H., Matsunaga, M. et al. 2020. Development of bed-building behaviors in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Implication for critical period hypothesis and captive management. Primates 61(5), 639-646.

Wild great apes build beds for sleeping by combining tree branches or other vegetation, but the development of this behavior is poorly understood. We investigated the development of bed-building behaviors by conducting complementary cross-sectional and...

de Freslon, I., Peralta, J. M., Strappini, A. C. et al. 2020. Understanding allogrooming through a dynamic social network approach: An example in a group of dairy cows. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 535.

For gregarious species such as domestic cattle, the social environment is a very important determinant of their welfare and fitness. Understanding the complexity of cows' relationships can assist the development of management practices that are...

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...

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...

Saville, J. W., Ross, J. A., Trefz, T. et al. 2020. Development and field validation of lidocaine-loaded castration bands for bovine pain mitigation. Animals 10(12), 2363.

Castration is among the most common management procedures performed in the dairy and beef cattle industries and is mainly performed by surgery or elastic banding. Despite the various benefits of castration, all methods produce pain...

Dewaele, A., Badonnel, K., Persuy, M.-A. et al. 2020. Effect of environmental exposure to a maternally-learned odorant on anxiety-like behaviors at weaning in mice. Animal Cognition 23(5), 881–891.

Early sensory experience, such as exposure to maternal or other environmental factors, is considered to influence neurocognitive development and behaviors. In many species, exposure to odorants during pregnancy or lactation impacts the morpho-functional development of...