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. 
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...

Turcu, M.-C., Paștiu, A. I., Bel, L.-V. et al. 2023. Minimally invasive sampling methods for molecular sexing of wild and companion birds. Animals 13(21), 3417.

Birds are highly social and must be paired in order to increase their welfare. Most bird species are monomorphic; therefore, molecular sexing helps provide appropriate welfare for birds. Moreover, early sex determination can be of...

Zhang, Y., Yu, J., Zhang, Y. et al. 2023. Emotional contagion and social support in pigs with the negative stimulus. Animals 13(20), 3160.

This study expects to confirm the existence of emotional transmission in pigs from multiple perspectives and to provide theoretical references for improving animal welfare in livestock farming. A group that could directly observe (DO) and...

Alizadeh, E. A., Graf, K., Schiwon, J. et al. 2023. Thirty years of telemetry-based data acquisition for cardiovascular drug safety evaluation: Applications and optimization. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 122, 107279.

Conducting safety evaluations of new drugs using conscious animals has been a specialty of our working group for thirty years. In this article, we review the various technical challenges and solutions dealt with over the...

O'Malley, C. I., Hubley, R., Tambadou, H. et al. 2022. Refining restraint techniques for research pigs through habituation. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1016414.

Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...

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...

O’Malley, C. I., Hubley, R., Tambadou, H. et al. 2022. Refining restraint techniques for research pigs through habituation. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1016414.

Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...

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...

Wang, M., Youssef, Al., Larsen, M. et al. 2021. Contactless video-based heart rate monitoring of a resting and an anesthetized pig. Animals 11(2), 442.

Heart rate (HR) is a vital bio-signal that is relatively easy to monitor with contact sensors and is related to a living organism’s state of health, stress and well-being. The objective of this study was...

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...

Ellis, T., Katsiadaki, I. 2021. Clarification of early end-points for refinement of animal experiments, with specific reference to fish. Laboratory Animals 55(3), 244-253.

Appropriate end-points are integral to the refinement of laboratory animal experiments. Our recent experience has highlighted that ambiguity around end-points is hampering their adoption in experiments that cause severe suffering to fish. In toxicology, the...

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...

Dalmau, A., Sánchez-Matamoros, A., Molina, J. M. et al. 2021. Intramuscular vs. intradermic needle-free vaccination in piglets: Relevance for animal welfare based on an aversion learning test and vocalizations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 715260.

The aim of the present study was to compare intramuscular injection with a needle and intradermic needle-free vaccinations against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) in piglets at 28 days old by studying behavioral and...

Bøgh, N., Agger, P., Omann, C. et al. 2020. New device for noninvasive telemetric monitoring of vital signs in healthy and newly operated piglets. JAALAS 59(1), 90–93.

Measuring vital signs is central to medical practice, but they are difficult to monitor in awake laboratory animals. We examined the feasibility of a noninvasive device [Cortrium C3 device] for telemetric assessment of respiration rate...

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...

Ocepek, M., Newberry, R. C., Andersen, I. L. 2020. Which types of rooting material give weaner pigs most pleasure? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 231, 105070.

Provision of rooting material as enrichment for pigs has been primarily oriented towards reducing negative affect (suffering). Information is also needed on the impact of different types of rooting materials in promoting positive affect (pleasure)...

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...

Špinka, M. 2019. Animal agency, animal awareness and animal welfare. Animal Welfare 28(1), 11–20.

In nature, animals need to actively engage with the environment in order to prosper in survival and reproduction. Hence, agency is a central adaptive characteristic of animal life. In this paper, I propose that from...

Luo, L., Reimert, I., de Haas, E. N. et al. 2019. Effects of early and later life environmental enrichment and personality on attention bias in pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus). Animal Cognition 22(6), 959–972.

We investigated effects of early and later life housing on attention bias, as an indicator of affective state, in pigs differing in coping style [reactive (LR) vs. proactive (HR)]. Pigs (n = 128) in barren or enriched...

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...

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...

Goumon, S., Špinka, M. 2016. Emotional contagion of distress in young pigs is potentiated by previous exposure to the same stressor. Animal Cognition 19(3), 501–511.

This study tested whether emotional contagion occurs when piglets directly observe a penmate in distress (restraint) and whether there is an effect of previous experience on the response to subsequent restraint or exposure to conspecific...