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. 
Clarke, D., Ioannou, L. 2018. Introduction of gang caging for group housed rats. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(2), 136-137.

Using an existing gang cage designed for ferrets, we developed a version that would be suitable for housing rats. Caging consisted of 3 floors with a combined floor area of 11620m, connected by 2 ladders...

Graham, C., von Keyserlingk, M. A. G., Franks, B. 2018. Zebrafish welfare: Natural history, social motivation and behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 200, 13-22.

Zebrafish are now one of the most used animal model species in scientific research worldwide. Our current knowledge of wild zebrafish is limited to an estimated range of their natural habitats and their tendencies to...

Franks, B., Graham, C., Von Keyserlingk, M. A. G. 2018. Is heightened-shoaling a good candidate for positive emotional behavior in zebrafish? Animals 8(9), 152.

Zebrafish, a highly-social species of freshwater fish, are widely studied across many fields of laboratory science including developmental biology, neuroscience, and genomics. Nevertheless, as standard housing for zebrafish typically consists of small and simplistic environments...

Nunamaker, E. A., Goldman, J. L., Adams, C. R. et al. 2018. Evaluation of analgesic efficacy of meloxicam and 2 formulations of buprenorphine after laparotomy in female Sprague-Dawley rats. JAALAS 57(5), 498–507.

Managing postoperative pain in rodents is an important part of any animal care and use program, and identifying an optimal analgesic plan for a surgical procedure is critical to providing for animal welfare. Opioids and...

Grandin, T. 2018. My reflections on understanding animal emotions for improving the life of animals in zoos. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 21(S1), 12-22.

Scientists are often reluctant to attribute emotions to nonhuman animals that are similar to human emotions. When the author published her early studies, reviewers prohibited the word fear. Fearful behavior had to be described as...

Champneys, T., Castaldo, G., Consuegra, S., et al. 2018. Density dependent changes in neophobia and stress-coping styles in the world’s oldest farmed fish. Royal Society Open Science 5(12), 181473.

Farmed fish are typically reared at densities much higher than those observed in the wild, but to what extent crowding results in abnormal behaviours that can impact welfare and stress coping styles is subject to...

Edwards, G. L., Michael, J. A., Parks., A. 2018. Agricultural animals as biomedical models: Occupational health and safety considerations. ILAR Journal 59(2), 161-167.

The use of agricultural animals in biomedical research is increasing. Their overall size and metabolic rate, organ size, longer gestation period, and other physiological similarities make them good candidates for animal models of human disease...

Darbyshire, A. K., Salleng, K., Chen,P. 2018. The shocking lives of electric eels. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(1) (March), 14-18.

Electric eels (Electrophorus electricus) are a unique species used for behavioral research in the Vanderbilt Animal Care and Use Program. Few resources are available to describe the housing and handling of this species in captivity...

Straticò, P., Varasano, V., Suriano, R. et al. 2018. Analgesic effects of intravenous flunixin and intrafunicular lidocaine or their combination for castration of lambs. Veterinary Record Open 5(1), e000266.

Objective: To analyse the effectiveness of intrafunicular lidocaine and intravenous flunixin for reducing pain and signs of stress in lambs undergoing surgical castration. Design: Randomised controlled trial. Setting: One university teaching hospital in Italy. Participants...

Maia, C. M., Volpato, G. L. 2017. Preference index supported by motivation tests in Nile tilapia. PLOS ONE 12(4), e0175821.

The identification of animal preferences is assumed to provide better rearing environments for the animals in question. Preference tests focus on the frequency of approaches or the time an animal spends in proximity to each...

Barker, T. H., George, R. P., Howarth, G. S. et al. 2017. Assessment of housing density, space allocation and social hierarchy of laboratory rats on behavioural measures of welfare. PLOS ONE 12(9), e0185135.

Minimum space allowances for laboratory rats are legislated based on weight and stocking rates, with the understanding that increased housing density encourages crowding stress. However, there is little evidence for these recommendations, especially when considering...

Hestehave, S., Munro, G., Christensen, R. et al. 2017. Is there a reasonable excuse for not providing post-operative analgesia when using animal models of peripheral neuropathic pain for research purposes? PLOS ONE 12(11), e0188113.

Introduction: The induction of neuropathic pain-like behaviors in rodents often requires surgical intervention. This engages acute nociceptive signaling events that contribute to pain and stress post-operatively that from a welfare perspective demands peri-operative analgesic treatment...

Tsang, B., Zahid, H., Ansari, R. et al. 2017. Breeding zebrafish: A review of different methods and a discussion on standardization. Zebrafish 14(6), 561-573.

In recent years, a rapidly increasing number of scientific papers have been published that utilize zebrafish (Danio rerio) as an alternative model organism in the study of a wide range of biological phenomena from cancer...

Lopez-Luna, J., Al-Jubouri, Q., Al-Nuaimy, W. et al. 2017. Reduction in activity by noxious chemical stimulation is ameliorated by immersion in analgesic drugs in zebrafish. Journal of Experimental Biology 220(8), 1451-1458.

Research has recently demonstrated that larval zebrafish show similar molecular responses to nociception to those of adults. Our study explored whether unprotected larval zebrafish exhibited altered behaviour after exposure to noxious chemicals and screened a...

Thomas, A. A., Detilleux, J., Sandersen, C. F. et al. 2017. Minimally invasive technique for intrathecal administration of morphine in rats: Practicality and antinociceptive properties. Laboratory Animals 51(5), 479-489.

The intrathecal (IT) route of administration represents a means to reduce the dose of morphine administered for analgesia, potentially minimizing interactions between opioid effects and experimental outcomes. Perceived technical difficulty, and previously described invasive methods...

Hestehave, S., Munro, G., Brønnum Pedersen, T. et al. 2017. Antinociceptive effects of voluntarily ingested buprenorphine in the hot-plate test in laboratory rats. Laboratory Animals 51(3), 264-272.

Researchers performing experiments on animals should always strive towards the refinement of experiments, minimization of stress and provision of better animal welfare. An adequate analgesic strategy is important to improve post-operative recovery and welfare in...

Castelhano-Carlos, M. J., Baumans, V., Sousa, N. 2017. PhenoWorld: Addressing animal welfare in a new paradigm to house and assess rat behaviour. Laboratory Animals 51(1), 36-43.

The use of animals is essential in biomedical research. The laboratory environment where the animals are housed has a major impact on them throughout their lives and influences the outcome of animal experiments. Therefore, there...

Jirkof, P. 2017. Side effects of pain and analgesia in animal experimentation. Lab Animal 46(4), 123-128.

This review highlights selected effects of untreated pain and of widely used analgesics such as opioids, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs and antipyretics, to illustrate the relevance of carefully planned, appropriate and controlled analgesia for greater reproducibility...

Lahvis, G. 2017. Unbridle biomedical research from the laboratory cage. eLife 6, e27438.

Many biomedical research studies use captive animals to model human health and disease. However, a surprising number of studies show that the biological systems of animals living in standard laboratory housing are abnormal. To make...

Pinelli, C., Leri, F., Turner, P. 2017. Long term physiologic and behavioural effects of housing density and environmental resource provision for adult male and female Sprague Dawley rats. Animals 7(6), 44.

There is considerable interest in refining laboratory rodent environments to promote animal well-being, as well as research reproducibility. Few studies have evaluated the long term impact of enhancing rodent environments with resources and additional cagemates...

Nordquist, R., van der Staay, F., van Eerdenburg, F. et al. 2017. Mutilating procedures, management practices, and housing conditions that may affect the welfare of farm animals: Implications for welfare research. Animals 7(2), 12.

A number of mutilating procedures, such as dehorning in cattle and goats and beak trimming in laying hens, are common in farm animal husbandry systems in an attempt to prevent or solve problems, such as...

Chatigny, F., Kamunde, C., Creighton, C. M. et al. 2017. Uses and doses of local anesthetics in fish, amphibians, and reptiles. JAALAS 56(3), 244-253.

Local anesthetics are an integral part of routine pain management in mammals, yet their use is relatively limited in fish, amphibians and reptiles. These animals frequently undergo potentially painful surgical procedures and therefore could possibly...

Cary, C. D., Lukovsky-Akhsanov, N. L., Gallardo-Romero, N. F. et al. 2017. Pharmacokinetic profiles of meloxicam and sustained-release buprenorphine in prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). JAALAS 56(2), 160-165.

In this study, we evaluated the pharmacokinetic profiles of meloxicam and sustained-release (SR) buprenorphine in prairie dogs. The 4 treatment groups were: low-dose meloxicam (0.2 mg/kg SC), high-dose meloxicam (4 mg/kg SC), low-dose buprenorphine SR...

Brenneis, C., Westhof, A., Holschbach, J. et al. 2017. Automated tracking of motion and body weight for objective monitoring of rats in colony housing. JAALAS 56(1), 18-31.

Living together in large social communities within an enriched environment stimulates self-motivated activity in rats. We developed a modular housing system in which a single unit can accommodate as many as 48 rats and contains...

Kang, S. C., Jampachaisri, K., Seymour, T. L. et al. 2017. Use of liposomal bupivacaine for postoperative analgesia in an incisional pain model in rats (Rattus norvegicus). JAALAS 56(1), 63-68.

The local anesthetic bupivacaine is valuable for perioperative analgesia, but its use in the postoperative period is limited by its short duration of action. Here, we evaluated the application of a slow-release liposomal formulation of...