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. 
Krall, C., Glass, S., Dancourt, G. et al. 2019. Behavioural anxiety predisposes rabbits to intra-operative apnoea and cardiorespiratory instability. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 221, 104875.

Rabbits are prone to complications from both anaesthesia and anxiety. Given that anxiety can often impact quality of anaesthesia, we developed a novel cage-side anxiety assessment, and sought to determine whether it correlated to pre-...

Filby, E. 2019. Give us a break! Animal Technology and Welfare 18(1), 45-48.

Literature is replete with studies on stressors to laboratory rodents; knowing the impact research and husbandry interventions, such as routine cage changing, have on rodents’ stress levels, physiology and behaviour, we hypothesised that animals recovering...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Lovell-Badge, R. et al. 2019. Report of the 2018 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 81-91.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Working Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 25 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Lovell-Badge, R. et al. 2019. Report of the 2018 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 81-91.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Working Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 25 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and...

White, M. 2019. Pro’s and pro’s of selective cleaning. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 121-126.

The Kathleen Lonsdale Building (KLB), is a high specification, high health status animal facility that is a full IVC facility with an integral quarantine section. It houses transgenic (TG) mice, inbred, outbred and immuno-suppressed mice...

King, J. 2019. Team awesome: Why we can be proud. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 127-131.

The presentation I gave at IAT Congress 2019 was based on the changes and refinements the University of Dundee, Medical School Resource Unit (MSRU) has made over the past 18 months. These changes, described in...

Yao, L., Li, Y., Qian, Z. et al. 2019. Loss of control over mild aversive events produces significant helplessness in mice. Behavioural Brain Research 376, 112173.

This article is about the importance of giving mice control over what happens to them. Most of the pathophysiology of depression are still unknown because of its numerous disease states of distinct etiology and pathogenesis...

Erickson, R. L., Blevins, C. E., De Souza Dyer, C. et al. 2019. Alfaxalone-xylazine anesthesia in laboratory mice (Mus musculus). JAALAS 58(1), 30-39.

Since its recent reformulation, alfaxalone has gained popularity as an injectable veterinary anesthetic, including promising studies demonstrating the use of alfaxalone-xylazine for anesthesia in mice. Here we sought to expand these studies by testing additional...

Darbyshire, A. K., Oliver, K. H., Dupont, W. D. et al. 2019. Anesthesia and euthanasia of brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana). JAALAS 58(1), 58-63.

Invertebrates are often overlooked as laboratory animals, yet they are commonly used in toxicology, developmental, cellular and molecular biology, and radiation studies with euthanasia as an endpoint. Little is known regarding appropriate euthanasia methods for...

Winn, C. B., Issa, E. B., Curcillo, C. P. et al. 2019. Daily water intake by common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) and recommendations regarding fluid regulation. JAALAS 58(1), 16-20.

The typical daily water intake of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) in a research setting has not been well characterized. Because these New World primates are in demand as animal models for neurobehavioral experiments, which can...

Engel, R. M., Thomas III, M. L., Banks, R. E. 2019. Regional anesthesia for dentistry and orofacial surgery in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). JAALAS 58(2), 223-230.

Regional anesthesia is a commonly used adjunct to orofacial dental and surgical procedures in companion animals and humans. However, appropriate techniques for anesthetizing branches of the mandibular and maxillary nerves have not been described for...

Bellin, M. A., Reitnauer, K. J., Gomez, A. M. et al. 2019. Evaluation of a synthetic bedding substrate for mice (Mus musculus). JAALAS 58(2), 154-159.

This study compared a synthetic bedding substrate (SBS), which has the potential to be a particulate-free animal bedding system, with the standard woodchip bedding. The objective was to demonstrate that the SBS is habitable for...

Taylor, J. L., Noel, P., Mickelsen, M. 2019. Evaluation of a 16-week change cycle for ventilated mouse cages. JAALAS 58(4), 443-449.

The methods and conditions for housing research mice have been the subject of many discussions and publications in recent years. At our institution, we began to explore these matters with the goal of reducing stress...

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Care, Use, and Welfare of Marmosets as Animal Models for Gene Editing-Based Biomedical Research: Proceedings of a Workshop. The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 122 pp.

The marmoset, a type of small monkey native to South America, is a research model of increasing importance for biomedical research in the United States and globally. Marmosets offer a range of advantages as animal...

Bauer, C., Schillinger, U., Brandl, J. et al. 2019. Comparison of pre-emptive butorphanol or metamizole with ketamine +medetomidine and s-ketamine + medetomidine anaesthesia in improving intraoperative analgesia in mice. Laboratory Animals 53(5), 459–469.

In accordance with the ‘refinement’ component of the 3Rs, the primary aim of this study was to investigate and compare ketamine + medetomidine (KM) and s-ketamine + medetomidine (SKM) anaesthetic protocols in C57BL/6J mice (both sexes). We sought to...

Jensen, T. L., Kiersgaard, M. K., Mikkelsen, L. F. et al. 2019. Fasting of male mice – Effects of time point of initiation and duration on clinical chemistry parameters and animal welfare. Laboratory Animals 53(6), 587–597.

Fasting of mice is a common procedure, which can affect the outcome of the study as well as animal welfare. In this study, we assess the effects of fasting, fasting duration and fasting initiation time...

Gjendal, K., Lund Ottesen, J., Olsson, I. A. S. et al. 2019. Burrowing and nest building activity in mice after exposure to grid floor, isoflurane or ip injections. Physiology & Behavior 206, 59-66.

Burrowing and nest building are examples of highly motivated innate behaviours in rodents. Assessments based on these behaviours can be used as non-invasive indicators of pain, distress and suffering. In this study, we investigated the...

Robinson-Junker, A., O’Hara, B., Durkes, A. et al. 2019. Sleeping through anything: The effects of unpredictable disruptions on mouse sleep, healing, and affect. PLOS ONE 14(1), e0210620.

Many aspects of the laboratory environment are not tailored to the needs of rodents, which may cause stress. Unpredictable stressors can cause ulcers, prolonged pituitary-adrenal activation, and anhedonia. Similarly, pain has been demonstrated to slow...

Wang, X., Zhang, Y., Lu, T. et al. 2019. The effect of cage ventilation rate on the health of mice housed in Individually Ventilated Cages. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 45(3).

The number of air changes per hour (ACH), an important index for individually ventilated cages (IVC), strongly affects the cage microenvironment and the health of laboratory animals. The objective of this study was to determine...

Barabas, A. J., Aryal, U. K., Gaskill, B. N. 2019. Proteome characterization of used nesting material and potential protein sources from group housed male mice, Mus musculus. Scientific Reports 9, 17524.

Laboratory mice (Mus musculus) communicate a variety of social messages through olfactory cues and it is often speculated that these cues are preserved in nesting material. Based on these speculations, a growing number of husbandry...

Hill, R. L., Huskisson, S. M., Weigel, E. et al. 2019. Growth rates of juvenile Boa constrictor under two feeding regimes. Zoo Biology 38(2), 209-213.

Many husbandry routines in zoo herpetology are based on tradition, authoritarianism, anecdote, or speculation. However, relatively few empirical studies underlie many very common practices. We compared growth rates among littermates of Boa constrictor raised under...

Cox, R. J., Nol, P., Ellis, C. K. et al. 2019. Research with agricultural animals and wildlife. ILAR Journal 60(1), 66-73.

In fiscal year 2016, agricultural animals such as swine, sheep, goats, and cattle represented 10% of the 820 812 animals used in USDA-regulated research. In addition to traditional agricultural animals, research studies using captive wildlife...

Morgunowicz, A., Cavanagh, C., Nikitochkina, S. et al. 2019. Increased incidence of spontaneous seizures in laboratory mice in an IVC environment. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(3), 159-166.

Over the past decade, there has been an enormous shift away from the use of open top rodent cages to the use of individually ventilated cages (IVCs). This has brought with it many benefits, including...

Dauchy, R. T., Blask, D. E., Hoffman, A. E. et al. 2019. Influence of daytime LED light exposure on circadian regulatory dynamics of metabolism and physiology in mice. Comparative Medicine 69(5), 350–373.

Light is a potent biologic force that profoundly influences circadian, neuroendocrine, and neurobehavioral regulation in animals. Previously we examined the effects of light-phase exposure of rats to white light-emitting diodes (LED), which emit more light...

Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...