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. 
Jones, S., Paul, E. S., Dayan, P. et al. 2017. Pavlovian influences on learning differ between rats and mice in a counterbalanced Go/NoGo judgement bias task. Behavioural Brain Research 331, 214-224.

Judgement bias tests of animal affect and hence welfare assume that the animal’s responses to ambiguous stimuli, which may herald positive or negative outcomes, are under instrumental control and reflect ‘optimism’ or ‘pessimism’ about what...

Zomeño, C., Birolo, M., Zuffellato, A. et al. 2017. Aggressiveness in group-housed rabbit does: Influence of group size and pen characteristics. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 194, 79-85.

The aim of this work was to study how the group size and the number of doorways in a pen may influence the aggressive interactions throughout the reproductive cycle among does kept in a part-time...

Sands, C., Evans, C., Buckmaster, C. A. 2017. The grooming sleeve: Encouraging conspecific-like behavior and strengthening the human-animal bond. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 5(2) (June), 52-53.

The act of grooming has been found to greatly decrease stress, heart rate, and cortisol levels in nonhuman primates; this decrease in stress and cortisol is seen in the animal being groomed, as well as...

Liedtke, J., Schneider, J. M. 2017. Social makes smart: Rearing conditions affect learning and social behaviour in jumping spiders. Animal Cognition 20(6), 1093–1106.

There is a long-standing debate as to whether social or physical environmental aspects drive the evolution and development of cognitive abilities. Surprisingly few studies make use of developmental plasticity to compare the effects of these...

Perdue, B. 2017. Mechanisms underlying cognitive bias in nonhuman primates. Animal Behavior and Cognition 4(1), 105–118.

Recent research in nonhuman animals highlights the exciting possibility that performance on cognitive bias tasks might indirectly measure an individual’s subjective, affective state. Subjects first learn to perform a conditional discrimination task with two differentially...

Schlüns, H., Welling, H., Federici, J. R. et al. 2017. The glass is not yet half empty: Agitation but not Varroa treatment causes cognitive bias in honey bees. Animal Cognition 20(2), 233–241.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are prone to judge an ambiguous stimulus negatively if they had been agitated through shaking which simulates a predator attack. Such a cognitive bias has been suggested to reflect an internal...

Pinnell, R. C., Almajidy, R. K., Hofmann, U. G. 2016. Versatile 3-D printed headstage implant for group housing of rodents. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 257, 134-138.

An unfavourable yet necessary side-effect of stereotaxic surgery involves the social isolation of post-surgery rats, in order to protect their wound site or skull-mounted implant from damage. Social isolation can cause a myriad of behavioural...

Hales, C. A., Robinson, E. S. J., Houghton, C. J. 2016. Diffusion modelling reveals the decision making processes underlying negative judgement bias in rats. PLOS ONE 11(3), e0152592.

Human decision making is modified by emotional state. Rodents exhibit similar biases during interpretation of ambiguous cues that can be altered by affective state manipulations. In this study, the impact of negative affective state on...

Finlayson, K., Lampe, J. F., Hintze, S. 2016. Facial indicators of positive emotions in rats. PLOS ONE 11(11), e0166446.

Until recently, research in animal welfare science has mainly focused on negative experiences like pain and suffering, often neglecting the importance of assessing and promoting positive experiences. In rodents, specific facial expressions have been found...

Miller, A. L., Golledge, H. D. R., Leach, M. C. 2016. The influence of isoflurane anaesthesia on the rat grimace scale. PLOS ONE 11(11), e0166652.

Over 234,000 rats were used in regulated procedures in the UK in 2014, many of which may have resulted in some degree of pain. When using animals in research, there is an ethical and legal...

Lang, A., Schulz, A., Ellinghaus, A. et al. 2016. Osteotomy models – the current status on pain scoring and management in small rodents. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 433-441.

Fracture healing is a complex regeneration process which produces new bone tissue without scar formation. However, fracture healing disorders occur in approximately 10% of human patients and cause severe pain and reduced quality of life...

Graf, R., Cinelli, P., Arras, M. 2016. Morbidity scoring after abdominal surgery. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 453-458.

Postoperative monitoring of pain and distress in small rodents is not standardized, and widely accepted score sheets are not available. Here we describe a score sheet used in abdominal surgery of rodents, with particular reference...

Kanzler, S., Rix, A., Czigany, Z. et al. 2016. Recommendation for severity assessment following liver resection and liver transplantation in rats: Part I. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 459-467.

Score sheets were first introduced 30 years ago to assess pain, distress and suffering in animals. To date, however, there is still no general agreement on their use in research practice, and only a few...

Drude, N., Pawlowsky, K., Tanaka,H. et al. 2016. Severity assessment in rabbits after partial hepatectomy: Part II. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 468-475.

Although the recognition of pain, distress and discomfort has already been described in 1985 by Morton and Griffiths there is still very little known about the establishment of score sheets especially, regarding postsurgical pain and...

Wark, J. D., Amendolagine, L., Lukas, K. E. et al. 2016. Fecal glucocorticoid metabolite responses to management stressors and social change in four species of callitrichine monkeys. Primates 57(2), 267-277.

The use of enzyme immunoassays (EIA) for the non-invasive measurement of glucocorticoids provides a valuable tool for monitoring health and welfare in sensitive species. We validated methods for measuring fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGM) using the...

Hawkins, P., Atkinson, J., Birt, R. et al. 2016. Report of the 2015 RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(1), 9-22. [Meeting Report]

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 21 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on rodent welfare issues and share experiences...

Enser, S. 2016. Comparison of housing and welfare of group housed rabbits. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(1), 77-79.

This poster is based on welfare improvements gained from group housing rabbits in floor pens in the new Antibody Production Facility with a focus on development, behaviours and environmental enrichment in both male and female...

Sullivan, K., Fairn, E., Adamo, S. A. 2016. Sickness behaviour in the cricket Gryllus texensis: Comparison with animals across phyla. Behavioural Processes 128, 134-143.

Immune activation alters behaviour (i.e. sickness behaviour) in animals across phyla and is thought to aid recovery from infection. Hypotheses regarding the adaptive function of different sickness behaviours (e.g. decreased movement and appetite) include the...

Buijs, S., Vangeyte, J., Tuyttens, F. A. M. 2016. Effects of communal rearing and group size on breeding rabbits’ post-grouping behaviour and its relation to ano-genital distance. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 182, 53-60.

Group housing is becoming the standard for many farm animal species, as it is seen as a more welfare friendly way of keeping gregarious animals. Aggression between female breeding rabbits currently obstructs the implementation of...

Bozicovich, T. F. M., Moura, A. S. A. M. T., Fernandes, S. et al. 2016. Effect of environmental enrichment and composition of the social group on the behavior, welfare, and relative brain weight of growing rabbits. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 182, 72-79.

The objective of the study was to investigate if environmental enrichment and the composition of the social group would affect the behavior and relative brain weight of growing rabbits. Rabbits (72 males and 72 females)...

Lidster, K., Jefferys, J. G., Blümcke, I. et al. 2016. Opportunities for improving animal welfare in rodent models of epilepsy and seizures. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 260, 2-25.

Animal models of epilepsy and seizures, mostly involving mice and rats, are used to understand the pathophysiology of the different forms of epilepsy and their comorbidities, to identify biomarkers, and to discover new antiepileptic drugs...

Lockworth, C., Monts de Oca, N. 2016. Rodent health: A picture is worth a thousand words. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 4(2) (June), 46-47.

An animal health program involves identification of health conditions, as well as treatment and disposition of rodents. In most facilities with a large rodent population, the initial identification of health conditions is typically accomplished by...

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...

Lidster, K., Jefferys, J. G., Blümcke, I. et al. 2016. Opportunities for improving animal welfare in rodent models of epilepsy and seizures. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 260, 2-25.

Animal models of epilepsy and seizures, mostly involving mice and rats, are used to understand the pathophysiology of the different forms of epilepsy and their comorbidities, to identify biomarkers, and to discover new antiepileptic drugs...

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...