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. 
Boileau, A., Farish, M., Turner, S. P. et al. 2019. Infrared thermography of agonistic behaviour in pigs. Physiology & Behavior 210, 112637.

Infrared thermography (IRT) or thermal imaging is increasingly being used as a non-invasive method to gain information on animals' physiological and emotional state. IRT has the potential to serve as a non-invasive quantitative assessment method...

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...

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...

Morgan, L., Itin-Shwartz, B., Koren, L. et al. 2019. Physiological and economic benefits of abandoning invasive surgical procedures and enhancing animal welfare in swine production. Scientific Reports 9, 16093.

Food-animal welfare is a major ethical and social concern. Pork is the most consumed meat worldwide, with over a billion pigs slaughtered annually. Most of these pigs routinely undergo painful surgical procedures (surgical castration, tail...

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...

Schoos, A., Devreese, M., Maes, D. G. 2019. Use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in porcine health management. Veterinary Record 185(6), 172.

Objective: Treatment of inflammation and pain management is an important topic in the welfare of pigs. It is very difficult for veterinary practitioners to choose the most appropriate product for a certain problem. This review...

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...

Camps, T., Amat, M., Manteca, X. 2019. A review of medical conditions and behavioral problems in dogs and cats. Animals 9(12), 1133.

Not all animals behave identically when faced with the same situation. These individual differences in the expression of their behavior could be due to many factors, including medical conditions. These medical problems can change behavior...

McMillan, F. D. (ed). 2019. Mental Health and Well-being in Animals (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

This second edition is fully revised, expanded, and comprehensively updated with the most current knowledge about the full array of mental health issues seen in animals. Written by key opinion leaders, internationally-recognized experts and specialists...

Descovich, K. A., Richmond, S. E., Leach, M. C. et al. 2019. Opportunities for refinement in neuroscience: Indicators of wellness and post-operative pain in laboratory macaques. Alternatives to Animal Experimentation 36(4), 535-554.

Being able to assess pain in nonhuman primates undergoing biomedical procedures is important for preventing and alleviating pain, and for developing better guidelines to minimize the impacts of research on welfare in line with the...

D’Eath, R. B., Jack, M., Futro, A. et al. 2018. Automatic early warning of tail biting in pigs: 3D cameras can detect lowered tail posture before an outbreak. PLOS ONE 13(4), e0194524.

Tail biting is a major welfare and economic problem for indoor pig producers worldwide. Low tail posture is an early warning sign which could reduce tail biting unpredictability. Taking a precision livestock farming approach, we...

Anderson, J. H., Taggart, N. W., Edgerton, S. L. et al. 2018. Ultrasound guided percutaneous common carotid artery access in piglets for intracoronary stem cell infusion. Laboratory Animals 52(1), 88-92.

In pigs, the deep location of the common carotid artery and overlying sternomastoideus muscle in the neck has led to the recommendation for a surgical cutdown for common carotid access, as opposed to minimally invasive...

Phillips, K.A., Tukan, A. N., Rigodanzo, A. D. et al. 2018. Quantification of hair cortisol concentration in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) and tufted capuchins (Cebus apella). American Journal of Primatology 80(7), e22879.

Quantifying cortisol concentration in hair is a non‐invasive biomarker of long‐term hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal (HPA) activation, and thus can provide important information on laboratory animal health. Marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) and capuchins (Cebus apella) are New World primates...

Chotard, H., Ioannou, S., Davila-Ross, M. 2018. Infrared thermal imaging: Positive and negative emotions modify the skin temperatures of monkey and ape faces. American Journal of Primatology 80(5), e22863.

Facial thermography has enabled researchers to noninvasively and continuously measure the changes of a range of emotional states in humans. The present work used this novel technology to study the effect of positive and negative...

Rius, M. M., Pageat, P., Bienboire-Frosini, C. et al. 2018. Tail and ear movements as possible indicators of emotions in pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 205, 14-18.

A better understanding of animal emotions is an important goal in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to animal welfare science, but few reliable tools exist for measuring these emotions. Play behaviour is generally recognized as a...

Backus, B. L., McGlone, J. J. 2018. Evaluating environmental enrichment as a method to alleviate pain after castration and tail docking in pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 204, 37-42.

Castration and tail docking are common management practices performed on commercial swine farms in the US and around the world to reduce adverse behaviors and the occurrence of boar taint. However, these practices themselves are...

Rius, M. M., Cozzi, A., Bienboire-Frosini, C. et al. 2018. Selection of putative indicators of positive emotions triggered by object and social play in mini-pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 202, 13-19.

Positive welfare is more than the absence of negative experiences. Nevertheless, there are few feasible animal-based measures for positive welfare. This study aimed to investigate whether object and social play behaviours in pigs, which is...

Lahrmann, H. P., Hansen, C. F., D’Eath, R. et al. 2018. Tail posture predicts tail biting outbreaks at pen level in weaner pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 200, 29-35.

Detecting a tail biting outbreak early is essential to reduce the risk of pigs getting severe tail damage. A few previous studies suggest that tail posture and behavioural differences can predict an upcoming outbreak. The...

Lutz, C. K. 2018. A cross-species comparison of abnormal behavior in three species of singly-housed old world monkeys. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 199, 52-58.

Abnormal behavior occurs in a number of captive nonhuman primate species and is often used as an indicator of welfare. However, reported levels of abnormal behavior often vary across species, making general welfare judgments difficult...

Brown, S.M., Peters, R., Nevison, I.M. et al. 2018. Playful pigs: Evidence of consistency and change in play depending on litter and developmental stage. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 198, 36-43.

Play behaviour in pre-weaned piglets has previously been shown to vary consistently between litters. This study aimed to determine if these pre-weaning litter differences in play behaviour were also consistent in the post-weaning period. Seven...

Wedin, M., Baxter, E. M., Jack, M. et al. 2018. Early indicators of tail biting outbreaks in pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 7-13.

Tail biting outbreaks in pig farming cause suffering through pain and stress, and producers lose revenue due to carcass condemnation. Reliable behavioural indications of when an outbreak is imminent would provide farmers with tools for...

Vestbjerg Larsen, M. L., Andersen, H. M.-L., Pedersen, L. J. 2018. Tail posture as a detector of tail damage and an early detector of tail biting in finishing pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 209, 30-35.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relation between the tail posture of finishing pigs and tail damage with the aims to use tail posture as (1) a detector of tail damage...

Benedict, D., Megrath, B. 2018. Upgrades to nonhuman primate tethered infusion system. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(3) (September), 62-64.

Continuous tethered infusions in any animal model pose a unique set of problems. These problems are amplified when nonhuman primates are the model. A high tolerance to the tether system by an animal model is...

White, E., Fernandez, J., Wilson, J. M. 2018. Mini-pig urine collection within a laboratory environment. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(1) (March), 36-39.

Urinalysis is a commonly used method of evaluating urinary tract or kidney function and to screen for progression of experimentally induced models of infection, urinary tract disease, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension, among others. The ideal...

Unakafov, A. M., Möller, S., Kagan, I. et al. 2018. Using imaging photoplethysmography for heart rate estimation in non-human primates. PLOS ONE 13(8), e0202581.

For humans and for non-human primates heart rate is a reliable indicator of an individual’s current physiological state, with applications ranging from health checks to experimental studies of cognitive and emotional state. In humans, changes...