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. 
Slavík, O., Horký, P., Velíšek, J., et al. 2020. Pupil size variation as a response to stress in European catfish and its application for social stress detection in albino conspecifics. PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0244017.

Hormonal changes such as increased cortisol level in blood plasma in response to stress and social environmental stimuli are common among vertebrates including humans and typically accompanied by other physiological processes, such as changes in...

Mogil, J. S., Pang, D. S. J., Silva Dutra, G. G. et al. 2020. The development and use of facial grimace scales for pain measurement in animals. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 116, 480-496.

The measurement of pain in animals is surprisingly complex, and remains a critical issue in veterinary care and biomedical research. Based on the known utility of pain measurement via facial expression in verbal and especially...

Goodroe, A., Fitz, C., Bakker, J. 2020. Current topics in marmoset anesthesia and analgesia. ILAR Journal 61(2-3), 218-229.

Anesthetic and analgesics are essential components of both clinical and research procedures completed in marmosets. A review of current anesthetic and analgesic regimens for marmosets has been complied to provide a concise reference for veterinarians...

Ellis, T., Rimmer, G. S. E., Parker, S.-J. et al. 2019. In-tank underwater cameras can refine monitoring of laboratory fish. Animal Welfare 28(2), 191-203.

Laboratory animals need to be monitored to check the status of their health and welfare. Routine checks of laboratory fish are limited to visual observations of physical appearance and behaviour, but for species held in...

Benn, A. L., McLelland, D. J., Whittaker, A. L. 2019. A review of welfare assessment methods in reptiles, and preliminary application of the Welfare Quality® protocol to the pygmy blue-tongue skink, Tiliqua adelaidensis, using animal-based measures. Animals 9(1), 27.

Reptiles are held at wildlife parks and zoos for display and conservation breeding programs and are increasingly being kept as pets. Reliable indicators of welfare for reptiles need to be identified. Current guidelines for the...

Howell, C. P., Cheyne, S. M. 2019. Complexities of using wild versus captive activity budget comparisons for assessing captive primate welfare. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 78-96.

Activity budget comparisons between groups or individuals in the wild and those in captivity are commonly used to determine the range of wild-type behaviors that nonhuman animals in captivity perform. These comparisons are conducted with...

Arechavala-Lopez, P., Saraiva, J. L. 2019. Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes. Basel, Switzerland: MDPI, 132 pages.

This open access book is a printed edition of the Special Issue on Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes that was published in the journal Fishes. The PDF is free for download.

Fife-Cook, I., Franks, B. 2019. Positive welfare for fishes: Rationale and areas for future study. Fishes 4(2), 31.

Traditional animal welfare paradigms have focused on maintaining physical health and mitigating negative impacts to wellbeing. Recently, however, the field has increasingly recognized the importance of positive welfare (i.e., mental and physical states that exceed...

Saraiva, J. L., Arechavala-Lopez, P., Castanheira, M. F. et al. 2019. A global assessment of welfare in farmed fishes: The FishEthoBase. Fishes 4(2), 30.

Fish welfare is an essential issue that needs to be tackled by the aquaculture industry. In order to address it, studies have been limited to a small number of species and the information is generally...

Sterck, E. H. M., Zijlmans, D. G. M., de Vries, H., et al. 2019. Determining overweight and underweight with a new weight‐for‐height index in captive group‐housed macaques. American Journal of Primatology 81(6), e22996.

Housing primates in naturalistic groups provides social benefits relative to solitary housing. However, food intake may vary across individuals, possibly resulting in overweight and underweight individuals. Information on relative adiposity (the amount of fat tissue...

Raillard, M., Detotto, C., Grepper, S. et al. 2019. Anaesthetic and perioperative management of 14 male New Zealand white rabbits for calvarial bone surgery. Animals 9(11), 896.

Calvarial bone surgery on rabbits is frequently performed. This report aims to document a simple and practical anaesthetic and perioperative management for this procedure. Fourteen male New Zealand white rabbits were included in the study...

Carbajal, A., Soler, P., Tallo-Parra, O. et al. 2019. Towards non-invasive methods in measuring fish welfare: The measurement of cortisol concentrations in fish skin mucus as a biomarker of habitat quality. Animals 9(11), 939.

Cortisol levels in fish skin mucus have shown to be good stress indicators in farm fish exposed to different stressors. Its applicability in free-ranging animals subject to long-term environmental stressors though remains to be explored...

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-...

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...

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...

Chatigny, F. 2019. The controversy on fish pain: A veterinarian’s perspective. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(4), 400-410.

Fish welfare is still a relatively new field. As such, regulations and protocols to ensure fish welfare are currently limited and vary considerably in different jurisdictions. This is in part because of the ongoing controversy...

Sloman, K, A., Bouyoucos, I. A., Brooks, E. J. et al. 2019. Ethical considerations in fish research. Journal of Fish Biology 94(4), 556-577.

In this review, we focus primarily on the refinement of common methods used in fish research based on emerging knowledge with the aim of improving the welfare of fish used in scientific studies. We consider...

Balansard, I., Cleverley, L., Cutler, K. L. et al. 2019. Revised recommendations for health monitoring of non-human primate colonies (2018): FELASA Working Group Report. Laboratory Animals 53(5), 429–446.

The genetic and biological similarity between non-human primates and humans has ensured the continued use of primates in biomedical research where other species cannot be used. Health-monitoring programmes for non-human primates provide an approach to...

Ermatinger, F. A., Brügger, R. K., Burkart, J. M. 2019. The use of infrared thermography to investigate emotions in common marmosets. Physiology & Behavior 211, 112672.

Measuring body surface temperature changes with infrared thermography has recently been put forward as a non-invasive alternative measure of physiological correlates of emotional reactions. In particular, the nasal region seems to be highly sensitive to...

Jacobsen, J. V., Steen, K., Nilssen, K. J. 2019. Anaesthetic efficacy of Aqui-S, Benzoak, and MS-222 on lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) fries. Impact from temperature, salinity, and fasting. PLOS ONE 14(1), e0211080.

Large numbers of lumpfish are produced for the Norwegian salmon industry and are used to combat sea lice infestations. Periodically high mortality of farmed lumpfish demonstrates the need to improve farming conditions and animal welfare...

Broche Jr., N., Takeshita, R. S. C., Mouri, K. et al. 2019. Salivary alpha-amylase enzyme is a non-invasive biomarker of acute stress in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Primates volume 60(6), 547–558.

Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) enzyme functions as a digestive enzyme in many species that consume starch in their diet. Human studies have also revealed that sAA enzyme activity levels are positively correlated with the release of...

Poirier, C., Oliver, C. J., Castellano Bueno, J. et al. 2019. Pacing behaviour in laboratory macaques is an unreliable indicator of acute stress. Scientific Reports 9, 7476.

Pacing behaviour, the most frequent stereotypic behaviour displayed by laboratory rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) is often used as an indicator of stress. In this study, we investigated how reliable this welfare indicator is at detecting...

Glover, C. N., Newton, D., Bajwa, J. et al. 2019. Behavioural responses of the hagfish Eptatretus stoutii to nutrient and noxious stimuli. Scientific Reports 9, 13369.

The suitability of a traditional testing paradigm (e.g. choice chamber) for assessing chemosensory behaviour in the Pacific hagfish, Eptatretus stoutii, was examined. Actively-swimming hagfish, tested at night, showed no preference for any region of a...

Egelkamp, C. L., Ross, S. R. 2019. A review of zoo-based cognitive research using touchscreen interfaces. Zoo Biology 38(2), 220-235.

In the past few decades, there has been an increase in the number of zoo-based touchscreen studies of animal cognition around the world. Such studies have contributed to the field of comparative cognition despite the...

Message, R., Greenhough, B. 2019. “But it’s just a fish”: Understanding the challenges of applying the 3Rs in laboratory aquariums in the UK. Animals 9(12), 1075.

Adopting a social science perspective and qualitative methodology on the problem of laboratory fish welfare, this paper examines some underlying social factors and drivers that influence thinking, priorities and implementation of fish welfare initiatives and...