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...

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...

Bartlett, A., Grinsted, L., Freeman, M. S. 2023. Behaviour, furnishing and vertical space use of captive callimico (Callimico goeldii): Implications for welfare. Animals 13(13), 2147.

Provision of optimal captive care should be supported by species-specific evidence. Callimico (Callimico goeldii) is a small South American callitrichid primate. This study sought to address gaps in species-specific knowledge and captive management research by...

Baumgartner, M., Erhard, M. H., Zeitler-Feicht, M. H. 2023. Which animal-to-feeding-place ratio at time-controlled hay racks is animal appropriate? Preliminary analysis of stress responses of horses. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1005102

Automated feeding systems offer numerous advantages for animals and humans, but the associated benefits and risks can often only be seen under practical conditions. The space allowance (~80 cm per horse) at time-controlled hay racks...

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...

Bozzay, J. D., Walker, P. F., Atwood, R. E. et al. 2023. Development, refinement, and characterization of a nonhuman primate critical care environment. PLOS ONE 18(3), e0281548.

Systemic inflammatory response remains a poorly understood cause of morbidity and mortality after traumatic injury. Recent nonhuman primate (NHP) trauma models have been used to characterize the systemic response to trauma, but none have incorporated...

Bradshaw-Wiley, E., Randle, H. 2023. The effect of stabling routines on potential behaviour indicators of affective state in horses and their use in assessing quality of life. Animals 13(6), 1065.

Increasing interest in equine welfare has emphasised the need for objective and reliable behavioural indicators of horses’ affective state. However, research has yielded mixed results regarding behaviours suited for industry use largely because they are...

Brando, S., Vitale, A., Bacon, M. 2023. Promoting good nonhuman primate welfare outside regular working hours. Animals 13(8), 1423.

Promoting good primate welfare outside of daylight hours is an important task. The responsibility to provide a complex environment and environmental enrichment is an essential element of primate wellbeing programs that should be approached from...

Ermers, C., McGilchrist, N., Fenner, K. et al. 2023. The fibre requirements of horses and the consequences and causes of failure to meet them. Animals 13(8), 1414.

Failure to meet the minimum forage requirement of 1.5% of the horse’s bodyweight and the opportunity for foraging for a minimum of 8 h a day (not going without this opportunity longer than four to...

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...

Mauthe von Degerfeld, M., Serpieri, M., Bonaffini, G. et al. 2023. Intranasal atomization of ketamine, medetomidine and butorphanol in pet rabbits using a mucosal atomization device. Animals 13(13), 2076.

A non-invasive method of drug delivery, intranasal atomization, has shown positive results in human medicine and in some animal species. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of intranasal atomization, compared to...

Morgado, J. N., Lamonaca, E., Santeramo, F. G. et al. 2023. Effects of management strategies on animal welfare and productivity under heat stress: A synthesis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10, 1145610.

Climate change includes different dramatic events, and among them, heat stress exposition is the strongest phenomenon affecting the livestock sector. The effects of heat stress events on animal welfare are complex and the economic impacts...

Higham, J. P., Cooper, E. B., Whalen, C. et al. 2023. Urinary cytokine measurements do not reflect surgery-induced inflammation in rhesus macaques. American Journal of Primatology 85(8), e23506.

Measurement of the health and disease status of free-ranging primates is often limited by a lack of available biomarkers of immune activation and inflammation that can be applied noninvasively via the measurement of urine or...

Lau, A. R., Pinto, B. R., Witczak, L. R. et al. 2023. Room size and offspring presence impact pair-bonded primate affiliation. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 265, 105994.

Primates live in a variety of social groupings and vary in the expression of species-typical behaviors depending upon social conditions. Coppery titi monkeys (Plecturocebus cupreus) are pair-bonding, territorial primates often used to study neurobiology and...

Hansmeyer, L., Yurt, P., Agha, N. et al. 2023. Home-enclosure-based behavioral and wireless neural recording setup for unrestrained rhesus macaques. ENeuro 10(1) ENEURO.0285-22.2022.

Electrophysiological studies with behaving nonhuman primates often require the separation of animals from their social group as well as partial movement restraint to perform well-controlled experiments. When the research goal per se does not mandate...

Chakravarty, S., Donoghue, J., Waite, A. S. et al. 2023. Closed-loop control of anesthetic state in nonhuman primates. PNAS Nexus 2(10), 293.

Research in human volunteers and surgical patients has shown that unconsciousness under general anesthesia can be reliably tracked using real-time electroencephalogram processing. Hence, a closed-loop anesthesia delivery (CLAD) system that maintains precisely specified levels of...

Brando, S., Norman, M. 2023. Handling and training of wild animals: Evidence and ethics-based approaches and best practices in the modern zoo. Animals 13(14), 2247.

There is an ethical responsibility to provide all animals living in human care with optimal and positive well-being. As animals living in zoos and aquariums frequently interact with their human caregivers as part of their...

Oikawa, T., Nomura, K., Hara, T. et al. 2023. A fine-scale and minimally invasive marking method for use with conventional tungsten microelectrodes. eNeuro 10(9), ENEURO.0141-23.2023.

In neurophysiology, achieving precise correlation between physiological responses and anatomic structures is a significant challenge. Therefore, the accuracy of the electrode marking method is crucial. In this study, we describe a tungsten-deposition method, in which...

Olczak, K., Penar, W., Nowicki, J. et al. 2023. The role of sound in livestock farming—Selected aspects. Animals 13(14), 2307.

To ensure the optimal living conditions of farm animals, it is essential to understand how their senses work and the way in which they perceive their environment. Most animals have a different hearing range compared...

Piekarski, N., Hobbs, T. R., Jacob, D. et al. 2023. A comparison of oocyte yield between ultrasound-guided and laparoscopic oocyte retrieval in rhesus macaques. Animals 13(19), 3017.

Obtaining quality oocytes is a prerequisite for ART-based studies. Here we describe a method for transabdominal ultrasound-guided (US) oocyte retrieval in rhesus macaques (Macaca mullata) and compare it to the standard surgical approach using laparoscopy...

Ruíz-López, P., Cuypers, C., Schauvliege, S. 2023. Xylazine infusion during equine colic anesthesia with isoflurane and lidocaine: A retrospective study. Animals 13(18), 2902.

This retrospective study investigated the effect of a xylazine infusion on heart rate; mean arterial pressure; blood gases; anesthetic and dobutamine requirements; recovery quality and duration; percentage of death/survival; and days to die/discharge in horses...

Smith, S. A. 2023. Fish welfare in public aquariums and zoological collections. Animals 13(16), 2548.

A wide variety of fish species have been displayed in public aquariums and zoological collections for over 150 years. Though the issue of pain perception in fish is still being debated, there is no disagreement...

Brown, A. 2023. Aced it! Performing large volume survival bleeds in rabbits. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 11(3) (May/June), 44-46.

New Zealand White rabbits are commonly used for polyclonal antibody production, which can require collecting no more than 10% of total body weight every two weeks (approximately 20 ml of blood for a 4 kg...

Bertani, S., Donadi, A., Franchi, J. et al. 2023. Blood microsampling in cynomolgus monkey and evaluation of plasma PK parameters in comparison to conventional sampling. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 123, 107298.

Microsampling, a reduced volume sampling method, has successfully gained attention at the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) level and established benefits support its use in Toxicokinetic (TK) studies. These improved sampling techniques are less invasive...

Breitenbach, R., Ambros, S., Risko, G. et al. 2023. The importance of auditory, olfactory, and visual cues for insect foraging in owl monkeys (Aotus nancymaae). American Journal of Primatology 85(10), e23539.

Nocturnal mammals have unique sensory adaptations to facilitate foraging at night. Owl monkeys (Aotus spp.) are pair-living nocturnal platyrrhines adept at capturing insect prey under low-light conditions. Owl monkeys use acoustic and chemical cues in...