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. 
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...

Luisi, B., Micheletta, J., Julle-Danière, E. et al. 2023. Monkeying around: Non-human primate behavioural responses to humans reproducing their facial expressions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 265, 105990.

People are often observed mimicking animals’ facial expressions in an attempt to communicate with them. However, to date, there is limited understanding of how animals respond to humans reproducing their facial displays, or if this...

Clark, F. E. 2023. In the zone: Towards a comparative study of flow state in primates. Animal Behavior and Cognition 10(1), 62–88.

Flow is an altered state of feeling ‘in the zone’ when fully absorbed in a challenge and is associated with positive affective state (feelings). Despite almost five decades of research, Flow has not yet been...

Tonachella, N., Martini, A., Martinoli, M. et al. 2022. An affordable and easy-to-use tool for automatic fish length and weight estimation in mariculture. Scientific Reports 12(1), 15642.

Common aquaculture practices involve measuring fish biometrics at different growth stages, which is crucial for feeding regime management and for improving farmed fish welfare. Fish measurements are usually carried out manually on individual fish. However...

Edes, A. N., Zimmerman, D., Jourdan, B. et al. 2022. Value ranges and clinical comparisons of serum DHEA-S, IL-6, and TNF-α in western lowland gorillas. Animals 12(19), 2705.

Physiological data can provide valuable information about the health and welfare of animals. Unfortunately, few validated assays and a lack of information on species-typical levels of circulating biomarkers for wildlife make the measurement, interpretation, and...

Mason, G. J., Lavery, J. M. 2022. What is it like to be a bass? Red herrings, fish pain and the study of animal sentience. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 788289.

Debates around fishes’ ability to feel pain concern sentience: do reactions to tissue damage indicate evaluative consciousness (conscious affect), or mere nociception? Thanks to Braithwaite’s research leadership, and concerns that current practices could compromise welfare...

Santymire, R. M., Young, M., Lenihan, E. et al. 2022. Preliminary investigation into developing the use of swabs for skin cortisol analysis for the ocean sunfish (Mola mola). Animals 12(20), 2868.

The ocean sunfish (mola; Mola mola) is the heaviest bony fish in the world. This slow-moving fish often is injured by fishing boats that use drift gillnets attributing to its listing as Vulnerable by the...

Gilmour, K. M., Bard, B. 2022. Social buffering of the stress response: Insights from fishes. Biology Letters 18(10), 20220332.

Social buffering of stress refers to the effect of a social partner in reducing the cortisol or corticosterone response to a stressor. It has been well studied in mammals, particularly those that form pair bonds...

Prior, H., Holbrook, M. 2021. Strategies to encourage the adoption of social housing during cardiovascular telemetry recordings in non-rodents. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 108, 106959.

The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) is working with industry to promote social housing during cardiovascular telemetry recordings within non-rodent safety pharmacology and toxicology studies. Following surveys...

Sørensen, D., Cloutier, S., Gaskill, B. (Eds.). 2021. Animal-centric Care and Management - Enhancing Refinement in Biomedical Research. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

The concept of the 3Rs (Refinement, Reduction and Replacement) has been used as a framework for improving the welfare of laboratory animals for the last half century. By establishing an animal-centric view on housing and...

Chmurska-Gąsowska, M., Sowińska, N., Pałka, S. et al. 2021. Non-invasive measurement of thyroid hormones in domestic rabbits. Animals 11(5), 1194.

Thyroid hormones are essential for metabolism, energy homeostasis and reproduction. Hormones can be measured in various biological source materials: blood, feces, urine, saliva and others. The aim of our study was to verify usefulness of...

Ordóñez-Grande, B., Guerreiro, P. M., Sanahuja, I. et al. 2021. Environmental salinity modifies mucus exudation and energy use in European sea bass juveniles. Animals 11(6), 1580.

Changes in skin mucus production and composition offer a new means to study how fish cope with changes in the environment. We explored the utility of skin mucus as an indicator of physiological responses and...

Travain, T., Valsecchi, P. 2021. Infrared thermography in the study of animals’ emotional responses: A critical review. Animals 11(9), 2510.

Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the...

MacLellan, A., Fureix, C., Polanco, A. et al. 2021. Can animals develop depression? An overview and assessment of “depression-like” states. Behaviour 158(14/15), 1303–1353.

Describing certain animal behaviours as 'depression-like' or 'depressive' has become common across several fields of research. These typically involve unusually low activity or unresponsiveness and/or reduced interest in pleasure (anhedonia). While the term 'depression-like' carefully...

Ross, S. R., Lake, B. R., Fultz, A. et al. 2021. An evaluation of thermal imaging as a welfare monitoring tool for captive chimpanzees. Primates 62(6), 919-927.

Among the growing list of novel tools with which to assess animal welfare is the use of thermal (infrared) imaging. The technology has already been utilized to identify emotional arousal in several nonhuman primate species...

Edes, A. N., Brand, C. M. 2021. Age, sex, and inflammatory markers predict chronic conditions, cardiac disease, and mortality among captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Primates 62(6), 931-943.

In humans, inflammatory markers predict health risks. As great apes experience many similar conditions, measuring inflammation may provide valuable health information. We examined four serum inflammatory markers in zoo-housed gorillas (n = 48): albumin, CRP, IL-6, and...

Goldsborough, Z., van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Kolff, K. W. T. et al. 2020. Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) console a bereaved mother? Primates volume 61(1), 93–102.

Comparative thanatology encompasses the study of death-related responses in non-human animals and aspires to elucidate the evolutionary origins of human behavior in the context of death. Many reports have revealed that humans are not the...

Byrnes, E. E., Lear, K. O., Morgan, D. L. et al. 2020. Respirometer in a box: Development and use of a portable field respirometer for estimating oxygen consumption of large‐bodied fishes. Journal of Fish Biology 96(4), 1045-1050.

Respirometry has become the standard method for measuring the metabolic rate of fishes. Traditionally, respirometry has required the fish to be kept in captivity and tested under controlled conditions; however, many species do not readily...

Rogers, L., Sales, E., Shamsi, S. et al. 2020. Aggressive encounters lead to negative affective state in fish. PLOS ONE 15(4), e0231330.

Animals show various behavioural, neural and physiological changes in response to losing aggressive encounters. Here, we investigated affective state, which are emotion-like processes influenced by positive or negative experiences, in a territorial fish following aggressive...

Cloutier Barbour, C., Danforth, M. D., Murphy, H. et al. 2020. Monitoring great ape heart health through innovative electrocardiogram technology: Training methodologies and welfare implications. Zoo Biology 39(6), 443-447.

Assessing and treating cardiovascular disease (or heart disease) is a growing concern for institutions housing great apes, as it is a major cause of mortality in all four taxa managed in human care. As part...

McMahon, S. A., Wigham, E. 2020. ‘All Ears’: A questionnaire of 1516 owner perceptions of the mental abilities of pet rabbits, subsequent resource provision, and the effect on welfare. Animals 10(10), 1730.

Pet rabbit welfare is a hidden crisis: Inappropriately housed, fed, and not routinely provided healthcare—rabbits can often suffer painful conditions and shortened lifespans. This study provides novel understanding of owners’ perceptions of rabbits’ mental capabilities...

Ordóñez-Grande, B., Guerreiro, P. M., Sanahuja, I. et al. 2020. Evaluation of an acute osmotic stress in European sea bass via skin mucus biomarkers. Animals 10(9), 1546.

European sea bass is a marine teleost which can inhabit a broad range of environmental salinities. So far, no research has studied the physiological response of this fish to salinity challenges using modifications in skin...

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...

Murphy, A. M., Ross, C. N., Bliss‐Moreau, E. 2019. Noninvasive cardiac psychophysiology as a tool for translational science with marmosets. American Journal of Primatology 81(9), e23037.

The importance of marmosets for comparative and translational science has grown in recent years because of their relatively rapid development, birth cohorts of twins, family social structure, and genetic tractability. Despite this, they remain understudied...

Heintz, M. R.; Fuller, G., Allard, S. 2019. Exploratory investigation of infrared thermography for measuring gorilla emotional responses to interactions with familiar humans. Animals 9(9), 604.

Interactions between zoo professionals and animals occur regularly and are believed to be enriching for animals. Little empirical information exists on how animals perceive these interactions, and particularly how the interactions affect the emotional states...