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. 
Key, D. 2004. Environmental enrichment options for laboratory rats and mice. Lab Animal 33(2), 39-44.

Environmental enrichment is the alteration of animals' microenvironment to provide them with the opportunity to perfrom species-specific behaviors that we perceive as positive, while reducing abnormal behaviors. [p. 39] Several interesting products are now available...

Guilarte, T. R., Toscano, C. D., McGlothan, J. L. et al. 2004. Environmental enrichment: Beneficial effects in a rodent model of lead neurotoxicity. Proceedings of the 4th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences - Alternatives to Laboratory Animals [ATLA] 32(Supplement), 236 (Abstract).

Using a rodent model of lead-induced neurotoxicity, we show that environmental enrichment reverses cognitive and molecular deficits induced by this developmental neurotoxicant... At weaning, pups were removed from the lead exposure and housed in isolation...

Patterson-Kane, E. G. 2003. Shelter enrichment for rats. Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science 42(2), 46-48.

Nest boxes are a simple and effective form of environmentalenrichment. Rats accept a wide range of nest-box types but have the strongest...preference for enclosed, opaque, thermoplastic boxes. ...Tubes have proven a relatively ineffective enrichment for...

Johnson, S. R., Patterson-Kane, E. G. 2003. Foraging as environmental enrichment for laboratory rats: A theoretical review. Animal Technology and Welfare 2, 13-22.

Foraging opportunities are a form of environmental enrichment with great potential to improve the welfare of animals in laboratories. Though commonly used with zoo animals, little evidence exists of their use in laboratories. Technicians or...

Applebee, K. A. 2002. Rodent environmental enrichment - animal welfare or human feel-good factor. Animal Technology and Welfare 1(2), 65-69.

This article discusses environmental enrichment for rodents, mainly mice and rats housed in conventional caging, in U.K. research facilities. Environmental enrichment should allow and encourage animals to perform normal behavioural patterns. Cage furniture cannot be...

Morris, T., Goulet, S., Morton, D. 2002. The International Symposium on Regulatory Testing and Animal Welfare: Recommendations on best scientific practices for animal care and regulatory toxicology. ILAR Journal 43(Supplement), S123-S125.

The key conclusion from the group's initial discussions was that enough information was now available to make robust recommendations for animal care best practices. Implementation, not information, is therefore the critical issue [p.123]... Well-implemented enrichment...

Guittin, P., Decelle, T. 2002. Future improvements and implementation of animal care practices within the animal testing regulatory environment. ILAR Journal 43(Supplement), S80-S84.

The enrichment of the animals' environment will not likely affect the interpretation of the results, particularly if adequate controls are used. Appropriate enrichment methods can be chosen to be compatible with the aims of the...

Fernández-Teruel, A., Giménez-Llort, L., Escorihuela, R. M. et al. 2002. Early-life handling stimulation and environmental enrichment: Are some of their effects mediated by similar neural mechanisms? Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 73(1), 233-245.

Neonatal (early) handling (EH) and environmental enrichment (EE) of laboratory rodents have been the two most commonly used methods of providing supplementary environmental stimulation in order to study behavioral and neurobiological plasticity. A large body...

Fillman-Holliday, D., Landi, M. S. 2002. Animal care best practices for regulatory testing. ILAR Journal 43(Supplement), S49-S58.

General discussion of environmental enrichment. Many laboratory animal species, especially dogs and nonhuman primates, lose interest and stop using a particular device after exposure to it for some time (authors' experiences). It is best to...

Queyras, A., Bernarducci, R., Vitale, A. 2001. Environmental enrichment during separtion in captive common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus): Behavioural and physiological aspects. Folia Primatologica 72(3), 151-152. (Primate Meeting Abstract)

In the social condition, the animals tended to show an increased heart rate, presumably resulting from competion over access to the foraging device.

Cohoon, J. 2001. Nylabone on a chain. Tech Talk [The Newsletter for Laboratory Animal Science Technicians] 6(1), 2.

Both pigs and rabbits are having a great time banging the bone on the cage - they can swing it around, and they get to chew on it too!

Eskola, S., Lauhikari, M., Voipio, H.-M. et al. 1999. Environmental enrichment may alter the number of rats needed to achieve statistical significance. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 26(3), 134-144.

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether two enrichment items, an aspen tube and block, have any impact on commonly analysed clinical chemistry and physiological parameters of Wistar rats and - more importantly...

Eskola, S., Lauhikari, M., Voipio, H.-M. et al. 1999. The use of aspen blocks and tubes to enrich the cage environment of laboratory rats. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 26(1), 1-10.

Female and male outbred Wistar rats (n=48) were allocated into three groups at weaning; control, tube and block groups (n = 8 males and 8 females in each) Animals were conventionally housed for five weeks...

Eskola, S., Kaliste-Korhonen, E. 1998. Effects of cage type and gnawing blocks on weight gain, organ weights and open-field behaviour inWistar rats. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 25(4), 180-193.

Two separate experiments were conducted to study the environmental enrichment value of aspen gnawing blocks in solid bottom cages with bedding '(SBC) and in grid floor cages without bedding (GFC), and the effects of housing...

Benefiel, A. C., Greenough, W. T. 1998. Effects of experience and environment on the developing and mature brain: Implications of laboratory animal housing. ILAR Journal 39(1), 5-11.

Immune system function appears to be enhanced in environmentally enriched rats relative to controls housed in standard cages.

Woolley, A. P. A. H. 1997. Requirements of biomedical research in terms of housing and husbandry for non-human primates: Pharmacology & Toxicology. Primate Report 49, 37-41.

The objective of toxicology and pharmacology studies is to detect change or variation from normal and to interpret the significance of such change, with the intention of assessing risk to man. With non-human primates (NHPs)...

Schapiro, S. J., Bloomsmith, M. A., Suarez, S. A. et al. 1997. A comparison of the effects of simple versus complex environmental enrichment on the behaviour of group-housed, subadult rhesus macaques. Animal Welfare 6, 17-28.

Enrichment of the environments of captive primates is currently of interest as both a basic and an applied research question, particularly when social and inanimate enhancements are used simultaneously. We measured the hehavioural effects of...

Sambrook, T. D., Buchanan-Smith, H. M. 1997. Control and complexity in novel object enrichment. Animal Welfare 6(3), 207-216.

We discuss the properties of controllability and complexity in novel object enrichment, their definition and present a critique of previous work related to them.

Reinhardt, V., Roberts, A. 1997. Effective feeding enrichment for non-human primates: A brief review. Animal Welfare 6(3), 265-272.

There is a growing awareness that non-human primates kept in zoos and laboratories deserve more species-appropriate stimulation because of their biological adaptation to a challenging environment. Numerous attempts have been made to effectively emulate the...

Reinhardt, V. 1997. Training nonhuman primates to cooperate during handling procedures: A review. Animal Technology 48, 55-73.

Twenty-six reports provide detailed information of how primates can be trained to voluntarily cooperate - rather than resist - during blood collection, injection, topical drug application, blood pressure measurement, urine collection, and capture.

Reinhardt, V. 1997. Species-adequate housing and handling conditions for Old World nonhuman primates kept in research institutions. In: Comfortable Quarters for Laboratory Animals, Eighth Edition. Reinhardt, V. (ed), 85-93. Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC.

Practical recommendations to address five basic characteristics of Old World primates in the laboratory setting: a) social disposition, b) semi-arboreal lifestyle, c) complex living environment, d) intelligence, e) sensitivity to distress.

Pecenko, N. 1997. Visitors as an environmental enrichment. In: Proceedings on the International Conference on Environmental Enrichment. Holst, B. (ed), 325-33. Copenhagen Zoo, Frederiksberg, DK.

Because of the influence in behaviour, we can say that visitors are a kind of environmental enrichment. .... Sometimes visitors have a negative effect (increase of aggressive behaviour, begging for food) and in some cases...

Burge, T., Panoussis, B., Weber, H. 1997. Primate housing facilities for pharmaceutical research in Switzerland (an example). Primate Report 49, 19-22.

According to the Swiss Animal Welfare Legislation, the minimal enclosure area for macaques of the size of rhesus or cynomolgus monkeys for experimental purposes is 15 cubic meters. In such an enclosure up to 5...

Schapiro, S. J., Suarez, S. A., Porter, L. M. et al. 1996. The effects of different types of feeding enhancements on the behaviour of single-caged, yearling rhesus macaques. Animal Welfare 5, 129-138.

Enrichment techniques designed to encourage captive primates to spend more species-appropriate amounts of time in foraging behaviours have been successful. The present study measured the behavioural effects of four feeding enhancements: two devices (mats and...

Kaliste-Korhonen, E., Eskola, S., Rekilä, T. et al. 1995. Effects of gnawing material, group size and cage level in rack on Wistar rats. Scandinavian Journal of Laboratory Animal Science 22(4), 291-299.

Han:Wist rats were housed after weaning in groups of one, two, three or four in stainless steel cages with aspen chip bedding, with or without wooden gnawing blocks. The use of the blocks was assessed...