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. 
Curtis, G. C., Argo, C. McG., Jones, D. et al. 2016. Impact of feeding and housing systems on disease incidence in dairy calves. Veterinary Record 179(20), 512.

Contentious issues in calf rearing include milk feeding level and single versus group housing. The current study was performed on a high-producing 170 Holstein cow dairy farm to investigate the impact of nutrition and housing...

Martins, T., Valentim, A. M., Pereira, L. N. et al. 2016. Anaesthesia and analgesia in laboratory adult zebrafish: a question of refinement. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 476-488.

Anaesthesia is used daily in fish experimental procedures; however, the use of an inadequate anaesthetic protocol can compromise not only the animal’s welfare but also the reliability of results. The use of zebrafish (Danio rerio)...

Harl, H., Stevens, L., Margulis, S. W. et al. 2016. Gibbon aggression during introductions: An international survey. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 19(3), 260-270.

Little is known regarding the prevalence of aggression seen during introductions of captive gibbons (Hylobatidae). In this study, an online survey was developed to quantify and collect contextual details regarding the frequency and types of...

Hellström, G., Heynen, M., Borcherding, J. et al. 2016. Individual consistency and context dependence in group-size preference of Eurasian perch. Behavioural Processes 133, 6-11.

Many fish spend a large part of their life in groups. The size of the group influences potential costs and benefits of group living, and depending on context a fish may prefer different group sizes...

MacAllister, R. P., Lester McCully, C. M., Bacher, J. et al. 2016. Minimally invasive lumbar port system for the collection of cerebrospinal fluid from rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Comparative Medicine 66(4), 349–352.

Biomedical translational research frequently incorporates collection of CSF from NHP, because CSF drug levels are used as a surrogate for CNS tissue penetration in pharmacokinetic and dynamic studies. Surgical placement of a CNS ventricular catheter...

Prior, H., Bottomly, A., Champéroux, P. et al. 2016. Social housing of non-rodents during cardiovascular recordings in safety pharmacology and toxicology studies. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 81, 75-87.

Introduction: The Safety Pharmacology Society (SPS) and National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) conducted a survey and workshop in 2015 to define current industry practices relating to housing...

Abney, D. M., Moomaw, H. A. 2015. Strategies for successfully social housing incompatible cynomolgus macaque trios. American Journal of Primatology 77(S1), 59-60. (38th Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists Scientific Program, Abstract #65)

At Charles River, we are committed to ensuring all animals have the highest level of care and welfare. At our facility, the typical study design requires primates to be housed in groups of 3 (or...

Kaiser, R. A., Tichenor, S. D., Regalia, D. E. et al. 2015. Telemetric assessment of social and single housing: Evaluation of electrocardiographic intervals in jacketed cynomolgus monkeys. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 75, 38-43.

Proactive efforts to socially house laboratory animals are a contemporary, important focus for enhancing animal welfare. Jacketing cynomolgus monkeys has been traditionally considered an exclusionary criterion for social housing based on unsubstantiated concerns that study...

Gottlieb D. H., Maier, A., Coleman, K. 2015. Evaluation of environmental and intrinsic factors that contribute to stereotypic behavior in captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 171,184-91.

Full body repetitive behaviors, known as motor stereotypic behaviors (MSBs), are one of the most commonly seen abnormal behaviors in captive non-human primates, and are frequently used as a behavioral measure of well-being. The main...

Brandão, M. L., Braithwaite, V. A., Gonçalves-de-Freitas, E. 2015. Isolation impairs cognition in a social fish. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 171, 204-210.

In variable environments, animals can learn to alter their behavior to adjust to changes. Sometimes, however, this learning ability can be impaired. For example, challenges in the social or physical environment can trigger physiological responses...

Caron, A., Lelong, C., Pascual, M. H. et al. 2015. Miniaturized blood sampling techniques to benefit reduction in mice and refinement in nonhuman primates: Application to bioanalysis in toxicity studies with antibody-drug conjugates. JAALAS 54(2), 145-152.

Minimizing the number of animals in regulatory toxicity studies while achieving study objectives to support the development of future medicines contributes to good scientific and ethical practices. Recent advances in technology have enabled the development...

Collymore, C., Tolwani, R. J., Rasmussen, S. 2015. The behavioral effects of single housing and environmental enrichment on adult zebrafish (Danio rerio). JAALAS. 54(3), 280-285.

Environmental enrichment provides laboratory-housed species the opportunity to express natural behavior and exert control over their home environment, thereby minimizing stress. We sought to determine whether providing an artificial plant in the holding tank as...

Cassidy, L., Semple, S., Hannibal, D. et al. 2015. Behavioural and physiological effects of housing type on laboratory housed female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Folia Primatologica 86(4), 259-60.

Due to the despotic nature of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and their frequent use in biomedical research, it is important to understand the impact that standard housing practices can have on individuals of this species...

Molesti, S., Majolo, B. 2015. No short-term contingency between grooming and food tolerance in Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus). Ethology 121(4), 372-82.

The exchange of services such as allo-grooming, allo-preening, food tolerance and agonistic support has been observed in a range of species. Two proximate mechanisms have been proposed to explain the exchanges of services in animals...

Bloomsmith, M., Kim, N., Franklin, A. et al. 2015. Positive reinforcement methods to train chimpanzees to cooperate with urine collection. JAALAS 54, 66-69.

Positive reinforcement training can be used in many ways to enhance the welfare of captive primates. Training for biologic sample collection is one application of positive reinforcement training. In this study, 35 adult female chimpanzees...

Xing, G., Lu, J., Hu, M. et al. 2015. Effects of group housing on ECG assessment in conscious cynomolgus monkeys. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 75, 44-51.

Assessing the cardiovascular safety of new chemical or biological entities is important during pre-clinical development. Electrocardiogram (ECG) assessments in non-human primate (NHP) toxicology studies are often made using non-invasive telemetry systems. We investigated whether ECG...

Shams, S., Chatterjee, D., Gerlai, R. 2015. Chronic social isolation affects thigmotaxis and whole-brain serotonin levels in adult zebrafish. Behavioral Brain Research 292, 283-87.

The popularity of the zebrafish has been growing in behavioral brain research. Previously utilized mainly in developmental biology and genetics, the zebrafish has turned out to possess a complex behavioral repertoire. For example, it is...

Meagher, R. K., Daros, R. R., Costa, J.H. et al. 2015. Effects of degree and timing of social housing on reversal learning and response to novel objects in dairy calves. PLOS ONE 10(8), e0132828.

Rodents and primates deprived of early social contact exhibit deficits in learning and behavioural flexibility. They often also exhibit apparent signs of elevated anxiety, although the relationship between these effects has not been studied. To...

Bayne, K. A., Beaver, B. V., Mench, J. A. et al. 2015. Laboratory animal behavior. In: Laboratory Animal Medicine, 3rd edition. Fox, J. G., Anderson, L., Otto, G., et al. (eds). Elsevier, Inc., Amsterdam, NL. pp. 1617-1651.

The study of laboratory animal behavior has increased steadily over the last decade, with expanding emphasis on a variety of commonly used species. In the United States, this trend was initially focused on species for...

Kaiser, R. A., Tichenor, S. D., Regalia, D. E. et al. 2015. Telemetric assessment of social and single housing: Evaluation of electrocardiographic intervals in jacketed cynomolgus monkeys. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 75, 38-43.

Introduction: Proactive efforts to socially house laboratory animals are a contemporary, important focus for enhancing animal welfare. Jacketing cynomolgus monkeys has been traditionally considered an exclusionary criterion for social housing based on unsubstantiated concerns that...

Modarressie, R., Gunther, C., Bakker, T. 2015. UV deprivation influences social UV preference in juvenile sticklebacks. Animal Behavior and Cognition 2(2), 186–199.

Social aggregations occur in many different animal taxa and mainly result from non-random assortment. Investigating factors that shape and maintain the composition of social aggregations are among others a main topic for understanding ecological speciation...

Schillaci, T. T., Bishop, B. 2014. Effects of needle gauge on blood quality and potential for bruising with repeated blood collections in cynomolgus macaques. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 609-610. (Abstract #P226).

Obtaining quality blood samples while minimizing animal trauma related to venipuncture continues to be an important area of focus within the laboratory animal environment as it relates to both animal welfare and sample integrity. A...

Xie, L., Zho, Q., Liu, S. et al. 2014. Effect of living conditions on biochemical and hemtalogical parameters of the cynomolgus monkey. American Journal of Primatology 76(11), 1011-1024.

The cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) has been increasingly used in biomedical research. Although living conditions affect behavioral and physiological characteristics in macaques, little data is available on how living conditions influence blood-based parameters in the...

McGrew, K. 2014. The importance of data collection to social housing. Enrichment Record 19, 20-21.

Data collection can help facilitate the progress of social housing programs within individual institutions and in the industry as a whole. One benefit is that it provides the ability to address preconceived ideas (“myths”) with...

Hesse, S., Thunken, T. 2014. Growth and social behavior in a cichlid fish are affected by social rearing environment and kinship. Naturwissenschaften 101, 273-283.

Living in groups is a widespread phenomenon in many animal taxa. The reduction of predation risk is thought to be an important cause for the formation of groups. Consequently, grouping behavior is particularly pronounced during...