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. 
Golledge, H., Richardson, C. (Eds.) 2024. The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other Research Animals (9th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. 1040 p.

The latest edition of the seminal reference on the care and management of laboratory and research animals. The newly revised ninth edition of The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other...

Morton, D. B. 2023. A model framework for the estimation of animal “suffering”: Its use in predicting and retrospectively assessing the impact of experiments on animals. Animals 13(5), 800.

This paper presents and illustrates, with a working example, a hypothesis for the assessment of ongoing severity before and during an experiment that will enable humane endpoints and intervention points to be applied accurately and...

Rogers, L. J. 2023. Knowledge of lateralized brain function can contribute to animal welfare. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.

The specialized functions of each hemisphere of the vertebrate brain are summarized together with the current evidence of lateralized behavior in farm and companion animals, as shown by the eye or ear used to attend...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Davies, J. R., Purawijaya, D. A., Bartlett, J. M. et al. 2022. Impact of refinements to handling and restraint methods in mice. Animals 12(17), 2173.

There is increasing evidence that, compared to non-aversive handling methods (i.e., tunnel and cupping), tail handling has a negative impact on mouse welfare. Despite this evidence, there are still research organisations that continue to use...

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...

Bailey, K. T., Jantre, S. R., Lawrence, F. R. et al. 2022. Evaluation of active warming and surgical draping for perioperative thermal support in laboratory mice. JAALAS 61(5), 482-494.

Surgical procedures are commonly performed using mice but can have major effects on their core body temperature, including development of hypothermia. In this study, we evaluated active perioperative warming with and without surgical draping with...

Marques Maia, C., Volpato, G. L., Braithwaite, V. A. 2022. A psychological aversive condition does not change individual zebrafish preference for background color or artificial plant enrichments. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 25(4), 427-438.

Information on fish preference for environmental conditions can be a useful tool to offer them what they want, an important requirement for welfare purposes. Giving that such an approach deals with psychological states of the...

Barkus, C., Bergmann, C., Branco, T. et al. 2022. Refinements to rodent head fixation and fluid/food control for neuroscience. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 381, 109705.

The use of head fixation in mice is increasingly common in research, its use having initially been restricted to the field of sensory neuroscience. Head restraint has often been combined with fluid control, rather than...

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...

Williams, W. O., Baneux, P. 2022. Humane Intervention Points: Refining endpoint terminology to incorporate non-euthanasia intervention options to improve animal welfare and preserve experimental outcomes. Laboratory Animals 56(5), 482-489.

Consideration of The Three R’s (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) is essential when setting Humane Endpoints; however, a common interpretation assumes that Humane Endpoints are timepoints to perform euthanasia. This interpretation is not always consistent with...

Prentice, P. M., Houslay, T. M., Wilson, A. J. 2022. Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1046205.

Chronic stress is a major source of welfare problems in many captive populations, including fishes. While we have long known that chronic stress effects arise from maladaptive expression of acute stress response pathways, predicting where...

Serrano, C., Antonio, J. 2022. Ultrasound guided surgery as a refinement tool in oncology research. Animals 12(23), 3445.

Refinement is one of the ethical pillars of the use of animals in research. Ultrasonography is currently used in human medicine as a surgical tool for guided biopsies and this idea can be applied to...

Torgerson-White, L., Sánchez-Suárez, W. 2022. Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute. Animals 12(19), 2592.

Welfare is an individual attribute. In general, providing captive nonhuman animals with conditions conducive to good welfare is an idea more easily applied when dealing with few individuals. However, this becomes much harder—if not impossible—under...

Brough, D. W., Murkin, J. T., Amos, H. E. et al. 2022. Comparing variability in measurement of subcutaneous tumors in mice using 3D thermal imaging and calipers. Comparative Medicine 72(6), 364–375.

Repeatable tumor measurements are key to accurately assessing tumor growth and treatment efficacy. A preliminary study that we conducted showed that a novel 3D and thermal imaging system (3D-TI) for measuring subcutaneous tumors in rodents...

Ramos, J., Balasch, J. C., Tort, L. 2021. About welfare and stress in the early stages of fish. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 634434.

In conclusion, the investigations carried out up to now demonstrate that during the early stages fish show high sensitivity to many types of stressors involving an array of responses to overcome alterations that could affect...

Nunamaker, E. A., Davis, S., O’Malley, C. I. et al. 2021. Developing recommendations for cumulative endpoints and lifetime use for research animals. Animals 11(7), 2031.

Research animals are important for scientific advancement, and therefore, their long-term welfare needs to be monitored to not only minimize suffering, but to provide positive affective states and experiences. Currently, there is limited guidance in...

Celeste, N. A., Emmer, K. M., Bidot, W. A. et al. 2021. Effects of cling film draping material on body temperature of mice during surgery. JAALAS 60(2), 195-200.

General anesthesia induces many systemic effects, including thermoregulatory impairment and subsequent perioperative hypothermia. Due to the animals' small size, monitoring and maintaining body temperatures in laboratory rodents during anesthesia is important for successful surgical outcomes...

Labitt, R. N., Oxford, E. M., Davis, A. K. et al. 2021. A validated smartphone-based electrocardiogram reveals severe bradyarrhythmias during immobilizing restraint in mice of both sexes and four strains. JAALAS 60(2), 201-212.

Mouse handling and restraint affect behavior, physiology, and animal welfare, yet little information is available on how various mouse restraint methods affect cardiovascular parameters. We validated the use of a smartphone-based ECG sys- tem in...