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. 
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...

Szabo, B., Ringler, E. 2023. Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space. Animal Cognition 26(2), 537–549.

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is an ecologically important response which enables animals to avoid potentially harmful situations. Neophobia is a cognitive process by which individuals distinguish novelty from familiarity. In this study, we aimed...

Molinaro, H. G., Anderson, G. S., Gruny, L. et al. 2022. Use of blood lactate in assessment of manual capture techniques of zoo-housed crocodilians. Animals 12(3), 397.

Species-specific welfare indicators are important in promoting positive welfare for zoo animals. Reptiles are a notoriously understudied group in regards to behavior, welfare needs, and husbandry requirements. Using opportunistically obtained samples, we evaluated how blood...

Gilberto, D., Michener, M., Smith, B. et al. 2022. Chronic collection of cerebrospinal fluid from rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) with cisterna magna ports: Update on refinements. Comparative Medicine 72(1), 45-49.

More than 20 y ago, we developed an animal model for chronic and continuous collection of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from conscious rhesus macaques. Since our previous publication in 2003, we have successfully implanted 168 rhesus...

Buckmaster, C. L., Levesque, D., LaFollette, M. et al. 2022. Five hot topics in refinement of nonhuman primate neuroscience research. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 10(1) (January/February), 24-26.

Members of the North American 3Rs Collaborative (NA3RsC) refinement initiative have chosen to summarize developments in five hot topics of interest: 1. Tips for welfare-friendly transport, chairing, and restraint; 2. Guidance on refining food and...

Schilling, A.-K., Mazzamuto, M. V., Romeo, C. 2022. A review of non-invasive sampling in wildlife disease and health research: What’s new? Animals 12(13), 1719.

In the last decades, wildlife diseases and the health status of animal populations have gained increasing attention from the scientific community as part of a One Health framework. Furthermore, the need for non-invasive sampling methods...

Bethell, E. J., Khan, W., Hussain, A. 2022. A deep transfer learning model for head pose estimation in rhesus macaques during cognitive tasks: Towards a nonrestraint noninvasive 3Rs approach. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 255, 105708.

Head orientation is a measure of attention used in behavioral psychological research with non-human primates. It is used across a broad range of disciplines and settings, from the field to the laboratory. Field methods are...

Schnaider, M. A., Heidemann, M. S., Silva, A. H. P. et al. 2022. Cat vocalization in aversive and pleasant situations. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 55-56, 71-78.

Vocalization may transmit information from the emitting animal, including information about his or her emotional state. This study aimed to compare the vocal and the behavioral responses of domestic cats during an aversive and a...

Jacob, G., Katti, H., Cherian, T. et al. 2021. A naturalistic environment to study visual cognition in unrestrained monkeys. eLife 10, e63816.

Macaque monkeys are widely used to study vision. In the traditional approach, monkeys are brought into a lab to perform visual tasks while they are restrained to obtain stable eye tracking and neural recordings. Here...

Wells, D. L. 2021. Paw preference as a tool for assessing emotional functioning and welfare in dogs and cats: A review. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 236, 105148.

Dogs and cats have been extensively studied of late in relation to their paw preferences, with both species showing preferential motor bias at the level of the individual. Over the years, a wide range of...

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...

Stow, R., Kendrick, J., Ibbotson, N. et al. 2021. A new group housing approach for non-human primate metabolism studies. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 107, 106947.

Understanding the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) of candidate drugs in preclinical species is an integral part of the safety and efficacy evaluation in drug development. For this purpose, the housing of single animals...

Houser, L. A., Ramsey, C., de Carvalho, F. M. et al. 2021. Improved training and semen collection outcomes using the closed box chair for macaques. Animals 11(8), 2384.

Collaborative semen collection in monkeys is a valuable tool in research, animal collection management, and conservation efforts. To obtain samples, monkeys are often restrained in open restraint chairs (ORC) with the “pole and collar” technique...

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...

Falendysz, E. A., Calhoun, D. M., Smith, C. A. et al. 2020. Outside the box: Working with wildlife in biocontainment. ILAR Journal 61(1), 72-85.

Research with captive wildlife in Animal Biosafety Level 2 (ABSL2) and 3 (ABSL3) facilities is becoming increasingly necessary as emerging and re-emerging diseases involving wildlife have increasing impacts on human, animal, and environmental health. Utilizing...

Moody, C. M., Mason, G. J., Dewey, C. E. et al. 2020. Getting a grip: Cats respond negatively to scruffing and clips. Veterinary Record 186(12), 385.

Use of scruffing and scruffing tools (eg, clipnosis clips) to immobilise cats is contentious, and cat handling guidelines vary in recommendations regarding these techniques. The current study examined whether cats show negative responses to the...

Zemanova, M. A. 2020. Towards more compassionate wildlife research through the 3Rs principles: Moving from invasive to noninvasive methods. Wildlife Biology 2020(1), no page numbers.

Research in ecology and wildlife biology remains crucial for increasing our knowledge and improving species management and conservation in the midst of the current biodiversity crisis. However, obtaining information on population status often involves invasive...

Reinhardt, V. (ed.) 2020. It’s Okay to Cry - Discussions by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum [LAREF], Volume V. Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC.

This is the 5th volume of selected discussions that took place on the electronic Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum between February 2016 and December 2019. The forum was created in October 2002; it allows...

Quaranta, A., d’Ingeo, S., Amoruso, R. et al. 2020. Emotion recognition in cats. Animals 10(7), 1107.

Recent studies demonstrated that cats form social bonds with both conspecifics and humans. One of the key factors regulating social interactions is the transfer of emotions between the individuals. The present study aimed at investigating...

Lambert, H., Carder, G., D'Cruze, N. 2019. Given the cold shoulder: A review of the scientific literature for evidence of reptile sentience. Animals 9(10), 821.

We searched a selection of the scientific literature to document evidence for, and explorations into reptile sentience. The intention of this review was to highlight; (1) to what extent reptile capability for emotions have been...

Fermo, J. L., Schnaider, M. A., Silva, A. H. P. et al. 2019. Only when it feels good: Specific cat vocalizations other than meowing. Animals 9(11), 878.

Our objective was to identify and characterize the types of vocalization other than meowing (VOM) in two contexts, a pleasant and an aversive situation, and to study the effect of the sex of the animal...

Chu, X. 2019. Preliminary validation of natural depression in macaques with acute treatments of the fast-acting antidepressant ketamine. Behavioural Brain Research 360, 60-68.

Non-human primates have become one of the most important model animals for the investigation of brain diseases because they share a wide-range of genetics and social similarities with human beings. Naturally-evoked depression models in macaques...

Association of Primate Veterinarians. 2019. Association of Primate Veterinarians’ guidelines for nonhuman primate restraint. JAALAS 58(3), 282-284.

The Association of Primate Veterinarians (APV) recognizes that several forms of restraint, including physical and chemical, are necessary for the safe handling of nonhuman primates (NHPs). The following guidelines aim to provide information to researchers...