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. 
Brudzynski, S. M. 2019. Emission of 22 kHz vocalizations in rats as an evolutionary equivalent of human crying: Relationship to depression. Behavioural Brain Research 363, 1-12.

There is no clear relationship between crying and depression based on human neuropsychiatric observations. This situation originates from lack of suitable animal models of human crying. In the present article, an attempt will be made...

Domingues, R. R., Garrone-Neto, D., Hilsdorf, A. W. S. et al. 2019. Use of mucus as a non-invasive sampling method for DNA barcoding of stingrays and skates (batoid elasmobranchs). Journal of Fish Biology 94(3), 512-516.

In this study we tested the use of mucus from five species of Neotropical marine batoid elasmobranchs to extract genomic DNA for barcoding and phylogenetic analysis. The DNA from all individuals sampled was successfully amplified...

McKenzie, D. J., Sadoul, B., Geffroy, B. 2019. Measuring cortisol, the major stress hormone in fishes. Journal of Fish Biology 94(4), 540-555.

Stress in teleosts is an increasingly studied topic because of its interaction with growth, reproduction, immune system and ultimately fitness of the animal. Whether it is for evaluating welfare in aquaculture, adaptive capacities in fish...

LaFollette, M. R., Cloutier, S., Brady, C. et al. 2019. Laboratory animal welfare and human attitudes: A cross-sectional survey on heterospecific play or “rat tickling”. PLOS ONE 14(8), e0220580.

Laboratory rat welfare is critically influenced by laboratory animal personnel through their implementation, or lack of implementation, of various enrichment techniques. One such promising technique is heterospecific play, or “rat tickling”, which mimics aspects of...

Message, R., Greenhough, B. 2019. “But it’s just a fish”: Understanding the challenges of applying the 3Rs in laboratory aquariums in the UK. Animals 9(12), 1075.

Adopting a social science perspective and qualitative methodology on the problem of laboratory fish welfare, this paper examines some underlying social factors and drivers that influence thinking, priorities and implementation of fish welfare initiatives and...

Mather, J. A. 2019. Ethics and care: For animals, not just mammals. Animals 9(12), 1018.

Animals come in a huge array of types, species and structures, but without realizing it, we have focused our care on those like us, mammals. They look something like us, so it's easy to empathize...

Mazhary, H., Hawkins, P. 2019. Applying the 3Rs: A case study on evidence and perceptions relating to rat cage height in the UK. Animals 9(12), 1104.

This article investigates the barriers to implementing higher caging in animal research establishments in the UK. The use of animals in research and testing in the UK is regulated by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act...

Jirkof, P., Rudeck, J., Lewejohann, L. 2019. Assessing affective state in laboratory rodents to promote animal welfare—What is the progress in applied refinement research? Animals 9(12), 1026.

In the past, there was a strong focus on avoiding or reducing negative animal welfare in animal experimentation. Recently, the importance of promoting positive animal welfare in laboratory animals has been highlighted. To ensure and...

Rowland, N. E., Toth, L. A. 2019. Analytic and interpretational pitfalls to measuring fecal corticosterone metabolites in laboratory rats and mice. Comparative Medicine 69(5), 337–349.

Minimization and alleviation of stress are generally viewed as desirable aspects of laboratory animal management and use. However, achieving that goal requires an unambiguous and valid measure of stress. Glucocorticoid concentrations are commonly used as...

Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...

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...

Skinner, M., Ceuppens, P., White, P. et al. 2019. Social-housing and use of double-decker cages in rat telemetry studies. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 96, 87-94.

Rat telemetry is widely used for biomedical research purposes and is used routinely in early pre-clinical drug development to screen for the potential cardiovascular risk of candidate drugs. Historically, these studies have been conducted in...

LaFollette, M. R., O’Haire, M. E., Cloutier, S. et al. 2018. A happier rat pack: The impacts of tickling pet store rats on human-animal interactions and rat welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 203, 92-102.

Rats find initial interactions with humans frightening, which can lead to negative affect, and poor welfare. A handling technique called “tickling”, which mimics rat rough-and-tumble play, can be used to reduce these negative effects. When...

Hocking, A. J., Elliot, D., Hua, J. et al. 2018. Administering fixed oral doses of curcumin to rats through voluntary consumption. JAALAS 57(5), 508–512.

Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from turmeric, has a wide variety of therapeutic benefits including antiinflammatory, antioxidative, and chemopreventative effects. Oral gavage is widely performed to administer curcumin in laboratory rodents in several experimental models. Although...

LaFollette, M. R., O’Haire, M. E., Cloutier, S. et al. 2018. Practical rat tickling: Determining an efficient and effective dosage of heterospecific play. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 82-91.

Laboratory rats may experience stress during handling which can reduce their welfare. Rat tickling, a handling technique that mimics aspects of rat rough-and-tumble play, has been found to induce positive affect based on production of...

Raya, J., Neves Girardi , C. E., Hipólide, D. C. 2019. Corticosterone assimilation by a voluntary oral administration in palatable food to rats. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 37-41.

Drug delivery in research on nonhuman animals in the laboratory is still challenging because it is usually invasive and stressful. Stress-free voluntary oral drug administration in water lacks precise control of dose and timing of...

Freret-Meurer, N. V., Alves, M. A. S. 2018. Personality in the longsnout seahorse, Hippocampus reidi Ginsburg, 1933: Are males shyer than females? Behavioural Processes 157, 106-110.

Individual responses, particularly based on personality, can have important consequences for individual fitness, based upon success in exploring new habitats, feeding on novel foods, and aggressiveness in competitive interactions. We conducted laboratory experiments to analyze...

Byrd, R., Boyd, S., Buckmaster, C. 2018. Rat thunder jacket— A zen experience. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(3) (September), 55-57.

Germ-free rats are fairly uncommon, relative to germ-free mice, and restraining these animals safely and effectively for compound administration and blood collection can be challenging. There are many commercially available varieties of restraint devices, but...

Gut, W., Crump, L., Zinsstag, J. et al. 2018. The effect of human interaction on guinea pig behavior in animal-assisted therapy. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25, 56-64.

Guinea pigs are included in various animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), but no research has been published to date on behavioral changes in guinea pigs interacting with humans. The goal of this study was to evaluate the...

Lipták, B., Kaprinay, B., Gáspárová, Z. 2017. A rat-friendly modification of the non-invasive tail-cuff to record blood pressure. Lab Animal 46(6), 251-253.

In animal models, blood pressure measurement methods can be either invasive (direct) or non-invasive (indirect). The non-invasive alternative involves applying a tail-cuff for blood pressure measurement. Current standardized restraint methods involve confining the laboratory animal...

Barker, T. H., Bobrovskaya, L., Howarth, G. S. et al. 2017. Female rats display fewer optimistic responses in a judgment bias test in the absence of a physiological stress response. Physiology & Behavior 173, 124-131.

Metabolic cages are a type of housing used in biomedical research. Metabolic cage housing has been demonstrated to elicit behavioural and physiological changes in rodents housed within them. The nature of this effect has been...

Kleefeld, S., Bannerton, K., Kelly, J.2017. Effect of moderate environmental enrichment on commonly used behavioural tests in rats. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(1), 75-76.

The environment that laboratory animals are housed in should reflect their natural habitats in a manner that can satisfy their innate physiological and behavioural needs. This includes nest building, hiding, exploring and foraging. Providing environmental...

Breacker, C., Tilley, C. 2017. DNA sampling by skin swabbing for Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Animal Technology and Welfare 16(3), 211-213.

Fin clipping of live fish under anaesthesia is widely used to collect tissues samples for DNA extraction. However, this technique raises a number of ethical concerns, since the use of anaesthetic and/or physical fin damage...

de Lima Rocha, A. D., Menescal-de-Oliveira, L., da Silva, L. F. S. 2017. Effects of human contact and intra-specific social learning on tonic immobility in guinea pigs, Cavia porcellus. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 191, 1-4.

Social learning is the capacity of animals to acquire adaptive information from others. In the case of fear responses, animals can learn fearful or non-fearful responses by observing the behavior of conspecifics. Tonic immobility (TI)...

Grant, C., Marks, L., Prior, H. 2017. Provision of food and water in rodent whole body plethysmography safety pharmacology respiratory studies – Impact on animal welfare and data quality. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 88(Part 1), 79-84.

Introduction: We evaluated the feasibility of providing food and water to rodents during whole body plethysmography (WBP) studies as a welfare improvement to standard conditions. Methods: Male Han Wistar rats or CD1 mice (n=8) were...