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. 
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...

de Mouzon, C., Di-Stasi, R., Leboucher, G. 2024. Human perception of cats’ communicative cues: Human‐cat communication goes multimodal. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 270, 106137.

As a central key to apprehend the human-cat relationship, the question of how humans decode the behaviours expressed by their feline companions has drawn scientists’ attention in the past decades. To this point, previous studies...

Kaleel, K. L., Secoura, P. L., Muñoz-Pérez, J. P. et al. 2024. Endoscopy and rectal enema for fecal collection in wild sea turtles (Chelonia mydas, Eretmochelys imbricata) in a field setting. Zoo Biology 43(1), 55–60.

Forty-seven free-ranging sea turtles (46- Chelonia mydas, 1- Eretmochelys imbricata) were examined via novel use of an endoscopy combined with a rectal enema to obtain large fecal sample volumes. The cloaca was insufflated using an...

d’Isa, R., Gerlai, R. 2023. Designing animal-friendly behavioral tests for neuroscience research: The importance of an ethological approach. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1090248.

Behavioral tests have three key elements: (1) a motivating factor (what motivates the animal in the test); (2) an observable behavior (which behaviors we may expect the animal exhibits in response to the test); (3)...

Marks, C. A., Allen, L., Lindeberg, H. 2023. Non-lethal dose-response models replace lethal bioassays for predicting the hazard of para-animopropiophenone to Australian wildlife. Animals 13(3), 472.

Para-aminopropiophenone (PAPP) is a potent methaemoglobin (MetHb) forming agent used for the lethal control of exotic carnivores and mustelids. To assess the sensitivity of Australian wildlife to PAPP we developed an in vivo assay that...

Morton, D. B. 2023. A model framework for the estimation of animal “suffering”: Its use in predicting and retrospectively assessing the impact of experiments on animals. Animals 13(5), 800.

This paper presents and illustrates, with a working example, a hypothesis for the assessment of ongoing severity before and during an experiment that will enable humane endpoints and intervention points to be applied accurately and...

Warwick, C., Pilny, A., Steedman, C. et al. 2023. Mobile zoos and other itinerant animal handling events: Current status and recommendations for future policies. Animals 13(2), 214.

Mobile zoos are events in which non-domesticated (exotic) and domesticated species are transported to venues such as schools, hospitals, parties, and community centres, for the purposes of education, entertainment, or social and therapeutic assistance. We...

Williams, E., Hunton, V., Hosey, G. et al. 2023. The impact of visitors on non-primate species in zoos: A quantitative review. Animals 13(7), 1178.

Visitors are a prominent feature in the lives of zoo animals, and their presence can cause a range of impacts on zoo animals (typically classed as positive, negative or neutral impacts), commonly referred to as...

Machado, M., Freitas Silveira, R. M., Machado Bittar, C. M. et al. 2023. Can the emotional state of calves be noticed by their facial expression and heart rate? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 260, 105874.

The aim of this study was to identify whether or not dairy calves change their facial expression and heart rate according to their emotional state when subjected to a stroking or umbrella stimulus. Thirty-two mixed-breed...

Attokaren, M. K., Jeong, N., Blanpain, L. et al. 2023. BrainWAVE: A flexible method for noninvasive stimulation of brain rhythms across species. ENeuro 10(2) ENEURO.0257-22.2022.

Rhythmic neural activity, which coordinates brain regions and neurons to achieve multiple brain functions, is impaired in many diseases. Despite the therapeutic potential of driving brain rhythms, methods to noninvasively target deep brain regions are...

Macdonald, D. W. 2023. Mitigating human impacts on wild animal welfare. Animals 13(18), 2906.

Human activities negatively impact the welfare of wild vertebrates in many different contexts globally, and countless individual animals are affected. Growing concern for wild animal welfare, especially in relation to conservation, is evident. While research...

Mandour, A. S., Farag, A., Helal, M. A. Y. et al. 2023. Non-invasive assessment of the intraventricular pressure using novel color M-mode echocardiography in animal studies: Current status and future perspectives in veterinary medicine. Animals 13(15), 2452.

The assessment of diastolic function has received great interest in order to comprehend its crucial role in the pathophysiology of heart failure and for the early identification of cardiac events. Silent changes in the intraventricular...

Scott, L., Florkiewicz, B. N. 2023. Feline faces: Unraveling the social function of domestic cat facial signals. Behavioural Processes 213, 104959.

Lately, there has been a growing interest in studying domestic cat facial signals, but most of this research has centered on signals produced during human-cat interactions or pain. The available research on intraspecific facial signaling...

Szenczi, P., Jiménez Gallardo, A., Urrutia, A. et al. 2023. Non-invasive, real-time stress measurement: Vocalization compared with thermal imaging in kittens of the domestic cat in response to social separation. Behavioural Processes 213, 104955.

Finding tools to assess the stress response which can be easily applied, are non-invasive, reliable and measured in real time is still a relevant topic in many areas of biology. Vocal characteristics and temperature of...

Windschnurer, I., Häusler, A., Waiblinger, S. et al. 2022. Relationships between owner and household characteristics and enrichment and cat behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 247, 105562.

Owners may enhance their cats’ welfare by social enrichment (e.g. positive human-animal interactions), and physical enrichment (e.g. play objects). The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between owner characteristics (e.g. attitudes, attachment), household...

Nicolis, I. N., Beale, C. N., Bidot, W. A. et al. 2022. Performance and consistency of circulating warm water blankets for rodents. JAALAS 61(1), 96-100.

General anesthesia as used for rodent research can have adverse effects on physiologic mechanisms. Thermoregulation is often greatly inhibited, with resultant deleterious effects on cardiac and respiratory function. These potential effects can be mitigated by...

Barton, J. C., Didier, M. D., Silvestrini, P. et al. 2022. A noninvasive method of temperature measurement using a noncontact handheld infrared thermometer fails to correlate with rectal temperature in dogs and cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 260(7), 752-757.

OBJECTIVE: To perform a retrospective, multicenter observational study that compares the agreement of rectal temperature with the temperature measured with noncontact infrared thermometer (NCIT) in a population of dogs and cats. ANIMALS: 168 dogs and...

Hirata, S. 2022. Sky after 30 years: A brief biography of three biomedical research chimpanzees in Japan. Primates 63(2), 105–108.

This article describes the strategies employed by Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan to integrate 3 retired chimpanzees – who each spent 30 years singly housed in a biomedical facility – with the sanctuary’s other residents.

Giannetto, C., Acri, G., Pennisi, M. et al. 2022. Short communication: Use of infrared thermometers for cutaneous temperature recording: Agreement with the rectal temperature in Felis catus. Animals 12(10), 1275.

In veterinary medicine, the gold standard for assessing body temperature is rectal temperature assessment. Considering that this procedure is stressful for many species, in particular for cats, it could be clinically important to consider an...

Schilling, A.-K., Mazzamuto, M. V., Romeo, C. 2022. A review of non-invasive sampling in wildlife disease and health research: What’s new? Animals 12(13), 1719.

In the last decades, wildlife diseases and the health status of animal populations have gained increasing attention from the scientific community as part of a One Health framework. Furthermore, the need for non-invasive sampling methods...

Leconstant, C., Spitz, E. 2022. Integrative Model of Human-Animal Interactions: A One Health–One Welfare systemic approach to studying HAI. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 656833.

The Integrative Model of Human-Animal Interactions (IMHAI) described herewith provides a conceptual framework for the study of interspecies interactions and aims to model the primary emotional processes involved in human-animal interactions. This model was developed...

Martin-Flores, M., Sakai, D. M., Marra Muto, R. et al. 2022. A flexible endotracheal tube introducer improves first-attempt success of intubation in cats by novice anesthetists. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 260(11), 1316-1323.

OBJECTIVE: To test whether the use of a flexible endotracheal tube introducer (ETI) facilitates intubation of cats by veterinary students with little or no experience. ANIMALS: 125 healthy cats. PROCEDURES: Cats were sedated with dexmedetomidine...

Nagasawa, T., Kimura, Y., Masuda, K. et al. 2022. Physiological assessment of the health and welfare of domestic cats—An exploration of factors affecting urinary cortisol and oxytocin. Animals 12(23), 3330.

Physiological samples are beneficial in assessing the health and welfare of cats. However, most studies have been conducted in specialized environments, such as shelters or laboratories, and have not focused on cats living in domestic...

Naidenko, S. V., Alekseeva, G. S., Klyuchnikova, P. S. et al. 2022. Application of felid hair for non-invasive tracking of animal reproductive status and adrenal activity. Animals 12(20), 2792.

Hair can be a useful matrix to examine the hormonal status of an animal, although it is difficult to correlate the results to a specific time point. The aim of this study was to evaluate...

Serrano, C., Antonio, J. 2022. Ultrasound guided surgery as a refinement tool in oncology research. Animals 12(23), 3445.

Refinement is one of the ethical pillars of the use of animals in research. Ultrasonography is currently used in human medicine as a surgical tool for guided biopsies and this idea can be applied to...