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. 
Eskandarani, M. A., Hau, J., Kalliokoski, O. 2023. Rapid ammonia build-up in small individually ventilated mouse cages cannot be overcome by adjusting the amount of bedding. Lab Animal 52(6), 130–135.

We sought to investigate if varying levels of bedding had an effect on intra-cage ammonia levels in individually ventilated mouse cages (Euro Standard Types II and III). Employing a routine 2 week cage-changing interval, our goal...

Ferguson, L. T., Rashied, A. A., Liang, Z. et al. 2023. A novel scoring system for humane endpoints in mice with cecal ligation and puncture-induced sepsis. Comparative Medicine 73(6), 446–460.

Animal-based research is essential to the study of sepsis pathophysiology, diagnostics, and therapeutics. However, animal models of sepsis are often associated with high mortality because of the difficulty in predicting imminent death based on premortem...

Lopez-Echeverria, G., Alamaw, E., Gorman, G. et al. 2023. Comparing three formulations of buprenorphine in an incisional pain model in mice. JAALAS 62(6), 531–537.

This study compared the therapeutic effects in mice of 3 different formulations of buprenorphine. These formulations were standard buprenorphine hydrochloride (Bup-HCL) and 2 different extended-release buprenorphine formulations (Bup-ER and Ethiqa-XR [Bup-XR]). Drugs were evaluated based...

Miller, S. L., Leri, F., Pushinsky, A. et al. 2023. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) distinguish between two human caretakers and their associated roles within a captive environment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 267, 106053.

Zebrafish have become a popular biomedical model in recent decades, and are now maintained in laboratories worldwide. However, living within a captive environment can introduce novel environmental stressors and experiencing stress chronically can negatively affect...

Scott, L., Florkiewicz, B. N. 2023. Feline faces: Unraveling the social function of domestic cat facial signals. Behavioural Processes 213, 104959.

Lately, there has been a growing interest in studying domestic cat facial signals, but most of this research has centered on signals produced during human-cat interactions or pain. The available research on intraspecific facial signaling...

Cho, E., Walsh, C. A., D’Angelo-Gavrish, N. M. et al. 2023. Effects of housing density on reproductive performance, intracage ammonia, and welfare of mice continuously housed as breeders in standard mouse and rat caging. JAALAS 62(2), 116–122.

Maintaining compliance with cage density recommendations in The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals precludes continuous trio breeding in standard-sized mouse cages. This study evaluated and compared several parameters of reproductive performance...

Clancy, B. M., Theriault, B. R., Turcios, R. et al. 2023. The effect of noise, vibration, and light disturbances from daily health checks on breeding performance, nest building, and corticosterone in mice. JAALAS 62(4), 291–302.

At our institution, the techniques that technicians use for health checks vary for mice housed in cages on individually ventilated caging (IVC) racks. If the mice cannot be adequately visualized, some technicians partially undock the...

Gates, K. V., Alamaw, E., Jampachaisri, K. et al. 2023. Efficacy of supplemental diet gels for preventing postoperative weight loss in mice (Mus musculus). JAALAS 62(1), 87–91.

This study investigated whether the use of commercially available diet gels prevented the postoperative weight loss associated with major survival surgery in mice. C57BL/6 mice were divided into 3 groups (n = 9 per group)...

Reichert, M. N., Koewler, N. J., Hargis, A. M. et al. 2023. Effects of depilatory cream formulation and contact time on mouse skin. JAALAS 62(2), 153–162.

Depilatory creams are widely used in research to remove hair in preparation for surgery, imaging, and other procedures. However, few studies have evaluated the effects of these creams on mouse skin. We sought to determine...

Tirado-Muñiz, N., Spangler, T. L., Van Rooyen, H. et al. 2023. Evaluation of cage mate–induced postsurgical trauma in mice. JAALAS 62(2), 170–178.

Although mice are social animals, individual housing is sometimes requested after surgery. We questioned whether pair-housing mice after surgery resulted in greater trauma to the surgical site as compared with single housing. We further evaluated...

Yang, P., Hish, G., Lester, P. A. 2023. Comparison of systemic extended-release buprenorphine and local extended-release bupivacaine-meloxicam as analgesics for laparotomy in mice. JAALAS 62(5), 416–422.

Extended-release (ER) local anesthetics can be used in multi-modal analgesia or in situations in which systemic analgesics may alter animal physiology and thus introduce interpretational confounds. In this study, we compared the analgesic efficacy of...

Davis, H. J., Barabas, A. J., Gaskill, B. N. 2022. Titrating the preferences of altered lighting against temperature in female CD-1 laboratory mice, Mus musculus. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 246, 105541.

Aspects of the laboratory are aversive to mice, such as being housed under bright lights and at temperatures below their thermal comfort, causing stress and poor welfare. While murine thermal preferences are well understood, light...

Windschnurer, I., Häusler, A., Waiblinger, S. et al. 2022. Relationships between owner and household characteristics and enrichment and cat behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 247, 105562.

Owners may enhance their cats’ welfare by social enrichment (e.g. positive human-animal interactions), and physical enrichment (e.g. play objects). The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between owner characteristics (e.g. attitudes, attachment), household...

Merley, A. L., Hubbard, J. S., Rendahl, A. K. et al. 2022. Behavioral and physiologic effects of dirty bedding exposure in female ICR mice. JAALAS 61(1), 42-51.

Exposure of sentinel mice to dirty bedding is commonly used in health monitoring programs to screen colonies for clinical and subclinical disease. Despite the potential stressors present in dirty bedding, including but not limited to...

Nicolis, I. N., Beale, C. N., Bidot, W. A. et al. 2022. Performance and consistency of circulating warm water blankets for rodents. JAALAS 61(1), 96-100.

General anesthesia as used for rodent research can have adverse effects on physiologic mechanisms. Thermoregulation is often greatly inhibited, with resultant deleterious effects on cardiac and respiratory function. These potential effects can be mitigated by...

Scorrano, F. 2022. A new feeder device to provide cleaner and accessible diet gel to laboratory mice. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 10(2) (March/April), 50-52.

Gel solutions are simple to use, have a relative long shelf life and can be delivered with plastic cups or pouches. A common issue encountered by many institutions is that the gel becomes soiled quickly...

Reichert, M., Koewler, N., Hargis, A. M. et al. 2022. Effects of hair removal creams on mouse skin. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 10(3) (May/June), 46-47.

Human hair removal brands such as Nair™ are sometimes used in research to remove hair from mice before surgery, imaging, and other procedures.1,3 While the use of these depilatory creams in rodent research is relatively...

Hirata, S. 2022. Sky after 30 years: A brief biography of three biomedical research chimpanzees in Japan. Primates 63(2), 105–108.

This article describes the strategies employed by Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan to integrate 3 retired chimpanzees – who each spent 30 years singly housed in a biomedical facility – with the sanctuary’s other residents.

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...

Popper, A. N., Sisneros, J. A. 2022. The sound world of zebrafish: A critical review of hearing assessment. Zebrafish 19(2), 37-48.

Zebrafish, like all fish species, use sound to learn about their environment. Thus, human-generated (anthropogenic) sound added to the environment has the potential to disrupt the detection of biologically relevant sounds, alter behavior, impact fitness...

Clay, A. W., Crane, M. M., Bloomsmith, M. A. 2022. Weight management towards physiological and behavioral wellbeing for chimpanzees living under human care. Zoo Biology 41(3), 200-217.

Across a period of 54 months, several changes were made to the feeding protocols of 32 adult chimpanzees living at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center Field Station. Before implementing any changes in diet, baseline...

Stevens, C., Dobbinson, K., Brook, E. et al. 2022. Report of the 2021 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 21(2), 83-91.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 28 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and share experiences of...

Kolbe, T., Lassnig, C., Poelzl, A. et al. 2022. Effect of different ambient temperatures on reproductive outcome and stress level of lactating females in two mouse strains. Animals 12(16), 2141.

Ambient temperature is an important non-biotic environmental factor influencing immunological and oncological parameters in laboratory mice. It is under discussion which temperature is more appropriate and whether the commonly used room temperature in rodent facilities...

Mocho, J.-P., Collymore, C., Farmer, S. C. et al. 2022. FELASA-AALAS recommendations for monitoring and reporting of laboratory fish diseases and health status, with an emphasis on zebrafish (Danio rerio). Comparative Medicine 72(3), 127-148.

The exchange of fish for research may expose an aquatic laboratory to pathogen contamination as incoming fish can introduce bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses capable of affecting both experimental results and fish and personnel health...

Fehrenbach, L. A., Adekanye, A. A., Palillo, M. B. et al. 2022. Internal temperatures of packaging for overnight cross-country shipping of zebrafish (Danio rerio). Comparative Medicine 72(3), 195-203.

As the use of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a research model continues to rise, so too will the shipping and sharing of zebrafish strains across collaborating institutions. If done incorrectly, shipping can result in significant...