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. 
Talbot, S., Freire, R., Wassens, S. 2021. Identifying behavioural traits and underlying personality dimensions in domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius furo). Animals 11(8), 2173.

The aim of this study was to examine the personality structure of domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) by using owner-based reporting of personality traits. A total of 743 ferret owners participated in an online questionnaire...

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...

Le Balle, R., Cote, J., Santos Fernandez, F. A. 2021. Evidence for animal personalities in two Brazilian tortoises (Chelonoidis denticulatus and Chelonoidis carbonarius) and insights for their conservation. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 241, 105400.

Animal personality, the consistent between-individual differences in e.g., risk-taking, exploration, antipredator or mating behaviours, has major impacts on the fitness of individuals in many species. Understanding how to quantify animal personality should help us predicting...

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...

Burbano Lombana, D. A., Macrì, S., Porfiri, M. 2021. Collective emotional contagion in zebrafish. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 15, 730372.

Seeking to match our emotional state with one of those around us is known as emotional contagion-a fundamental biological process that underlies social behavior across several species and taxa. While emotional contagion has been traditionally...

Campbell, D. L. M., Lee, C. 2021. A perspective on strategic enrichment for brain development: Is this the key to animal happiness? Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 720422.

Livestock animals are sentient beings with cognitive and emotional capacities and their brain development, similar to humans and other animal species, is affected by their surrounding environmental conditions. Current intensive production systems, through the restrictions...

Hausmann, J. C., Krisp, A. R., Mans, C. et al. 2021. Analgesic efficacy of tramadol and morphine in White's tree frogs (Litoria caerulea). JAALAS 60(6), 681-686.

Published data are sparse regarding the recognition of clinically relevant pain and appropriate analgesia in amphibians. The amphibian analgesia literature has primarily focused on nociceptive pathways in a single species, the northern leopard frog (Rana...

Liu, S., Ma, J., Li, J. et al. 2020. Effects of pair versus individual housing on performance, health, and behavior of dairy calves. Animals 10(1), 50.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of pair versus individual housing on performance, health, and behavior of dairy calves. Thirty female Holstein dairy calves were assigned to individual (n = 10)...

Espinoza, C., Lomax, S., Windsor, P. 2020. The effect of topical anaesthesia on the cortisol responses of calves undergoing dehorning. Animals 10(2), 312.

Dehorning causes pain and distress to cattle, and there is a need to provide effective and practical analgesia to improve animal welfare. We conducted an experiment to determine the effect of a modified post-operative topical...

Neave, H. W., Costa, J. H. C., Weary, D. M. 2020. Long-term consistency of personality traits of cattle. Royal Society Open Science 7(2), 7191849.

Personality is often defined as the behaviour of individual animals that is consistent across contexts and over time. Personality traits may become unstable during stages of ontogeny from infancy to adulthood, especially during major periods...

Burn, C. C., Raffle, J., Bizley, J. K. 2020. Does 'playtime' reduce stimulus-seeking and other boredom-like behaviour in laboratory ferrets? Animal Welfare 29(1), 19-26.

Much environmental enrichment for laboratory animals is intended to enhance animal welfare and normalcy by providing stimulation to reduce 'boredom'. Behavioural manifestations of boredom include restless sensation-seeking behaviours combined with indicators of sub-optimal arousal. Here...

Angiulli, E., Pagliara, V., Cioni, C. et al. 2020. Increase in environmental temperature affects exploratory behaviour, anxiety and social preference in Danio rerio. Scientific Reports 10(1), 5385.

The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of a temperature increase on the behaviour of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) maintained for 21 days at 34 °C (treatment) and 26 °C (control). The temperatures chosen...

da Silva, A., Lima, M. R., Meletti, P. C. et al. 2020. Impact of environmental enrichment and social group size in the aggressiveness and foraging activity of Serrapinnus notomelas. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 224, 104943.

Fish are widely used in scientific research, and many species are bred for ornamental purposes and human consumption. Despite the large number of fish kept in captivity, research on the welfare of these animals has...

Rogers, L., Sales, E., Shamsi, S. et al. 2020. Aggressive encounters lead to negative affective state in fish. PLOS ONE 15(4), e0231330.

Animals show various behavioural, neural and physiological changes in response to losing aggressive encounters. Here, we investigated affective state, which are emotion-like processes influenced by positive or negative experiences, in a territorial fish following aggressive...

Arrazola, A., Dicker, K., Vasseur, E. et al. 2020. The effect of early housing and companion experience on the grazing and ruminating behaviour of naïve heifers on pasture. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 226, 104993.

Calves reared on pasture learn to graze from their dam and conspecifics during weaning. Social learning can be beneficial for calf performance and welfare, and pair-housing and companionship on pasture have been proposed as management...

Pinheiro Machado, T. M., Pinheiro Machado Filho, L. C., Daros, R. R. et al. 2020. Licking and agonistic interactions in grazing dairy cows as indicators of preferential companies. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 227, 104994.

The quality of the social environment should be studied as one of the welfare components of dairy herds. Licking and preference between cows are important socio-positive experiences in this context.The aims of this study were...

Köbrunner, D., Waiblinger, S., Stetina, B. U. et al. 2020. Insight into husbandry conditions, health, and behavior of pet ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) among German-speaking ferret owners. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 37, 8-19.

Few data are published about different ferret husbandry practices in terms of housing, enrichment, feeding, social management, and the health status of ferrets. However, these factors are crucial for animal welfare and influence animal behavior...

Mendonça Soares, S., Kirsten, K., Pompermaier, A. et al. 2020. Sex segregation affects exploratory and social behaviors of zebrafish according to controlled housing conditions. Physiology & Behavior 222, 112944.

Zebrafish has become an animal model in research and articles have established ideal conditions for their maintenance. However, little is known regarding the influence of gender and other cues on zebrafish behavior. Thus, here we...

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...

Lecorps, B., Nogues, E., von Keyserlingk, M. A. G. et al. 2020. Pessimistic dairy calves are more vulnerable to pain-induced anhedonia. PLOS ONE 15(11), e0242100.

Pain induces deficits in appreciation of rewards (i.e. anhedonia) and variation in response to pain may be partly explained by individual differences in general expectations (i.e. optimism). Dairy calves are routinely subjected to painful procedures...

Ruberto, T., Talbot, J. L., Reddon, A. R. 2020. Head up displays are a submission signal in the group-living daffodil cichlid. Behavioural Processes 181, 104271.

Dominance hierarchies can reduce conflict within social groups and agonistic signals can help to establish and maintain these hierarchies. Behaviours produced by subordinates in response to aggression are often assumed to function as signals of...

Shelton, D. S., Shelton, S. G., Daniel, D. K. et al. 2020. Collective behavior in wild zebrafish. Zebrafish 17(4), 243-252.

Anthropogenic change is expected to alter environments at alarming rates. To predict the impact of modified environments on social behavior, we must study the relationship between environmental features and collective behavior in a genetically tractable...

de Freslon, I., Peralta, J. M., Strappini, A. C. et al. 2020. Understanding allogrooming through a dynamic social network approach: An example in a group of dairy cows. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 535.

For gregarious species such as domestic cattle, the social environment is a very important determinant of their welfare and fitness. Understanding the complexity of cows' relationships can assist the development of management practices that are...

Frahm, S., Di Giminiani, P., Stanitznig, A. et al. 2020. Nociceptive threshold of calves and goat kids undergoing injection of clove oil or isoeugenol for disbudding. Animals 10(7), 1228.

In this preliminary study, we compared changes in mechanical nociceptive thresholds (MNT) of calves and goat kids injected with clove oil or isoeugenol under the horn bud as a potential, more welfare-friendly alternative to hot-iron...

Quaranta, A., d’Ingeo, S., Amoruso, R. et al. 2020. Emotion recognition in cats. Animals 10(7), 1107.

Recent studies demonstrated that cats form social bonds with both conspecifics and humans. One of the key factors regulating social interactions is the transfer of emotions between the individuals. The present study aimed at investigating...