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. 

As people’s focus broadens from animals on farms to zoos and aquaria, the field of welfare science and the public’s concern for animal welfare continue to grow. In captive animals, stress and its causes are...

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...

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...

Members of the North American 3Rs Collaborative (NA3RsC) refinement initiative have chosen to summarize developments in five hot topics of interest: 1. Tips for welfare-friendly transport, chairing, and restraint; 2. Guidance on refining food and...

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...

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...

The study of the endocrine status can be useful to understand wildlife responses to the changing environment. Here, we validated an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to non-invasively monitor adrenocortical activity by measuring fecal corticosterone metabolites (FCM)...

Research to assess the relationship between cats and humans is in a nascent stage. Some studies have assessed the stress status in cats using physiological indicators, such as the cortisol hormone, but have not focused...

Introduction: Transport to the clinic is a major source of stress for cats. The process involves being put into a carrier, driven in a car and handled. Cats are therefore removed from the safe-haven of...

Chronic exposure to stressful environments can negatively impact cats' health and welfare, affecting behavioral, autonomic, endocrine, and immune function, as with cats in shelters. Low-stress handling practices likely improve shelter cat welfare, but data supporting...

The standard method of obtaining body temperature in a bird can be a stressful event, making routine evaluations challenging. Twenty-eight privately owned birds in good health were enrolled in the study to compare digital and...

As pets are considered members of the family, their health has received widespread attention. Since pets cannot talk and complain when they feel uncomfortable, monitoring vital signs becomes very helpful in disease detection, as well...

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...

Temperament can be defined as interindividual differences in behavior that are stable over time and in different contexts. The terms ‘personality’, ‘coping styles’, and ‘behavioral syndromes’ have also been used to describe these interindividual differences...

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...

The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus, C. j.) is an established primate model in biomedical research and for human-related diseases. Monitoring of cardiovascular parameters including blood pressure (BP) is important for the health surveillance of these...

As research subjects, cats have contributed substantially to our understanding of biological systems, from the development of mammalian visual pathways to the pathophysiology of feline immunodeficiency virus as a model for human immunodeficiency virus. Few...

This book focuses primarily on human kindness and compassion rather than on human cruelty, callousness, indifference, and egocentric endeavors. It is common knowledge that many lay people and professional researchers treat animals in their charge...

This article provides details to consider when preparing to use animals in biomedical research. The stress of transport and receipt of animals into a new environment mandate the need for a period of stabilization and...

The use of "pre-invasive" implantable radio telemetry has revolutionized the collection of physiological data under stress-free conditions. It is now possible to measure accurately 'normal' baseline data of haemodynamic and electrical parameters in conscious and...

New World monkeys represent an important but often poorly understood research resource. The relatively small size and low zoonotic risk of these animals make them appealing as research subjects in a number of areas. However...