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 that include earlier publications) can be filtered by Animal Type, Setting, and Topic. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Golledge, H., Richardson, C. (Eds.) 2024. The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other Research Animals (9th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. 1040 p.

The latest edition of the seminal reference on the care and management of laboratory and research animals. The newly revised ninth edition of The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other...

Cogo Pagella, J., Rodríguez, M. F., Frisina, F. et al. 2024. Combining melatonin with dexmedetomidine improves anesthesia in rats. Laboratory Animals 58(3), 277–280.

Melatonin (ML) and dexmedetomidine (DM) are used separately as anesthetic premedication or as an anesthetic in humans and laboratory animals. In this study, we aimed to investigate the anesthetic properties of both drugs combined. The...

Eliav, A., Ofri, R., Brust, K. et al. 2024. Improving rat welfare through the development of a peribulbar anaesthesia technique for ophthalmic procedures: A preliminary study. Laboratory Animals 58(2), 116–126.

Rats are a commonly used animal model for the study of the pathogenesis and novel treatments of glaucoma, which is induced experimentally using invasive, painful procedures. Peribulbar anaesthesia (PBA) is frequently used in people and...

Liu, Q., Radchenko, M., Špinka, M. 2024. Disentangling developmental effects of play aspects in rat rough-and-tumble play. Biology Letters 20(5), 20240037.

Animal play encompasses a variety of aspects, with kinematic and social aspects being particularly prevalent in mammalian play behaviour. While the developmental effects of play have been increasingly documented in recent decades, understanding the specific...

Usategui-Martín, A., Liria - Loza, A., Valverde, R. A. et al. 2024. Husbandry protocols for juvenile loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) based on stress response to stocking density and dry-dock time. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 27(3), 589–601.

When necessary, sea turtles are held captive for veterinarian care and research purposes. Protocols and basic guidelines have been described for husbandry of sea turtles with veterinarian needs but not considering physiological indicators of animal...

Lindh, E., Meller, A., Raekallio, M. 2024. Effects of vatinoxan in rats sedated with a combination of medetomidine, midazolam and fentanyl. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 66(1), 23.

Alpha2-adrenoceptor agonists (α2-agonists) are widely used in animals as sedatives and for pre-anaesthetic medication. Medetomidine has often been given subcutaneously (SC) to rats, although its absorption rate is slow and the individual variation in serum...

Suba-Bokodi, É., Nagy, I., Molnár, M. 2024. The impact of transportation on the cortisol level of dwarf rabbits bred to animal-assisted interventions. Animals 14(5), 664.

(1) Background: the popularity of rabbits has increased during the last decade and become the third most common companion animal in the EU. Rabbits’ participation in Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAIs) is growing. It is highly important...

Bellini, L., Schrank, M., Veladiano, I. A. et al. 2023. Retrospective comparison of the effects of laryngeal mask and endotracheal tube on some cardio-respiratory variables in pet rabbits undergoing anaesthesia for elective gonadectomy. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 10.

Endotracheal intubation in rabbits is challenging and supraglottic airway devices, such as laryngeal masks (LMA), represent an alternative as they are easy to insert, and do not stimulate the larynx requiring therefore a lighter plane...

Eraslan, E., Castelhano-Carlos, M. J., Amorim, L. et al. 2023. Home-cage behavior is impacted by stress exposure in rats. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1195011.

Being social animals, rats exhibit a range of social behaviors that help them build social bonds and maintain group cohesion. Behavior is influenced by multiple factors, including stress exposure, and the expression of the impact...

Farag, A., Mandour, A. S., Hendawy, H. et al. 2023. A review on experimental surgical models and anesthetic protocols of heart failure in rats. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10, 1103229.

Heart failure (HF) is a serious health and economic burden worldwide, and its prevalence is continuously increasing. Current medications effectively moderate the progression of symptoms, and there is a need for novel preventative and reparative...

Hernández-Arteaga, E., Ågmo, A. 2023. Seminatural environments for rodent behavioral testing: A representative design improving animal welfare and enhancing replicability. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1192213.

The low replicability of scientific studies has become an important issue. One possible cause is low representativeness of the experimental design employed. Already in the 1950’s, Egon Brunswick pointed out that experimental setups ideally should...

Marquardt, A. E., VanRyzin, J. W., Fuquen, R. W. et al. 2023. Social play experience in juvenile rats is indispensable for appropriate socio-sexual behavior in adulthood in males but not females. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1076765.

Social play is a dynamic and rewarding behavior abundantly expressed by most mammals during the juvenile period. While its exact function is debated, various rodent studies on the effects of juvenile social isolation suggest that...

Mauthe von Degerfeld, M., Serpieri, M., Bonaffini, G. et al. 2023. Intranasal atomization of ketamine, medetomidine and butorphanol in pet rabbits using a mucosal atomization device. Animals 13(13), 2076.

A non-invasive method of drug delivery, intranasal atomization, has shown positive results in human medicine and in some animal species. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of intranasal atomization, compared to...

Parsons, M., Stryjek, R., Fendt, M. et al. 2023. Making a case for the free exploratory paradigm: Animal welfare-friendly assays that enhance heterozygosity and ecological validity. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1228478.

Animal welfare considerations are an essential part of scientific research. If animals may suffer, then even 26 the most promising research plans can be delayed or rejected and the resulting data may be questionable. 27...

Stark, R. A., Brinkman, B., Gibb, R. L. et al. 2023. Atypical play experiences in the juvenile period has an impact on the development of the medial prefrontal cortex in both male and female rats. Behavioural Brain Research 439, 114222.

In rats reared without play, or with limited access to play during the juvenile period, the dendrites of pyramidal neurons of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) exhibit more branching than rats reared with more typical...

Becker, L., Mallien, A. S., Pfeiffer, N. et al. 2023. Evidence-based severity assessment of the forced swim test in the rat. PLOS ONE 18(10), e0292816.

The forced swim test (FST) is a traditional assay, which has been used for more than 40 years to assess antidepressant effects of novel drug candidates. In recent years, a debate about the test has...

Nunes, S. 2023. Animal-friendly behavioral testing in field studies: Examples from ground squirrels. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.

Field studies of behavior provide insight into the expression of behavior in its natural ecological context and can serve as an important complement to behavioral studies conducted in the lab under controlled conditions. In addition...

Parsons, M. H., Stryjek, R., Fendt, M. et al. 2023. Making a case for the free exploratory paradigm: Animal welfare-friendly assays that enhance heterozygosity and ecological validity. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.

Rodents, laboratory rats and mice, have been used as models in experimental research for almost two centuries (Keeler, 1947; Bolles and Woods, 1964; Nishioka, 1995; Guénet and Bonhomme, 2003). During this time, it has been...

Siddall, R. 2023. Ethorobotic rats for rodent behavioral research: Design considerations. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.
Trujanovic, R., Rohrbach, H. 2023. Ultrasound-guided block of the sciatic and the femoral nerves in rabbits—A descriptive anatomical study. Animals 13(14), 2393.

The rabbit is a popular animal model for human biomechanical research involving surgery on the hind limb. Mortality is higher in rabbits when undergoing general anesthesia compared to dogs and cats. Moreover, due to their...

Benato, L., Murrell, J., Rooney, N. 2023. Determining a cut-off point for intervention analgesia in rabbits using the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale. Veterinary Record 193(5), e2995.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine the threshold of the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale (BRPS) indicating the need for intervention analgesia. Methods: Fourteen members of veterinary staff were recruited to rate rabbits...

Calisir, M., Yilmaz, O., Kolatan, H. E. et al. 2023. Effects of litter size and caging on physical and mental development in rats. Physiology & Behavior 267, 114200.

As a multidisciplinary field, laboratory animal science promotes or accelerates the emergence of innovative ideas and products. As research has increased, so has the demand for laboratory animals with reliable, standardized characteristics. Thus, the breeding...

Costa, R. S., Ciotti-McClallen, M., Tilley, R. et al. 2023. Intramuscular alfaxalone with or without buprenorphine or hydromorphone provides sedation with minimal adverse effects in healthy rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in a randomized blinded controlled trial. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 261(2), 223–228.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of alfaxalone administered IM with or without buprenorphine or hydromorphone in healthy rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). ANIMALS 24 male rabbits undergoing elective orchiectomy between August 21, 2021, and November 6, 2021...

Butcher, G., Davidson, A., Sloanc, A. et al. 2021. An apparatus for automatically training and collecting individualized behavioral data with socially housed rodents. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 365, 109387.

Background: Conventional methods for individually housing, training, and testing rodents in behavioral assays can impose constraints that may limit some kinds of experimental external validity, preempt environmental enrichment, impose heavy experimenter time burdens that limit...

Serinelli, I., Soloperto, S., Lai, O. R. 2022. Pain and pain management in sea turtle and herpetological medicine: State of the art. Animals 12(6), 697.

In sea turtle rescue and rehabilitative medicine, many of the casualties suffer from occurrences that would be considered painful in other species; therefore, the use of analgesic drugs should be ethically mandatory to manage the...