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. 
Paterson, E. A., Turner, P. V. 2022. Challenges with assessing and treating pain in research primates: A focused survey and literature review. Animals 12(17), 2304.

Research primates may undergo surgical procedures making effective pain management essential to ensure good animal welfare and unbiased scientific data. Adequate pain mitigation is dependent on whether veterinarians, technicians, researchers, and caregivers can recognize and...

Lee, V. E., Arnott, G., Turner, S. P. 2022. Social behavior in farm animals: Applying fundamental theory to improve animal welfare. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 932217.

A fundamental understanding of behavior is essential to improving the welfare of billions of farm animals around the world. Despite living in an environment managed by humans, farm animals are still capable of making important...

Gilmour, K. M., Bard, B. 2022. Social buffering of the stress response: Insights from fishes. Biology Letters 18(10), 20220332.

Social buffering of stress refers to the effect of a social partner in reducing the cortisol or corticosterone response to a stressor. It has been well studied in mammals, particularly those that form pair bonds...

da Silva Medeiros Elidio, H., Coelho, J. W. R., Cavalcanti Pereira da Silva, L. C. et al. 2021. Housing density and aggression in Syrian hamsters. JAALAS 60(5), 506-509.

The Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) is a solitary and naturally territorial animal, with female hamsters being more aggressive than males. This behavior makes handling difficult because they are usually housed in groups, which can lead...

Orient, E., Guillén-Salazar, F. 2021. The effects of alpha male removal on the social behavior of a group of olive baboons (Papio anubis). Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 24(4), 424-433.

In captivity, the managers of primate populations have removed individuals from their groups for medical and social reasons, but there has been little documentation regarding the consequences of this extraction on the sociality of the...

Stevens, T., Williams, W. R. 2020. Tarps used as visual barriers decrease aggressive conflicts in baboons. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(5) (September/October), 72-74.

Nonhuman primate (NHP) colonies housed in research settings are manipulated frequently due to research protocols, for breeding, and for veterinary procedures. These manipulations come with maneuvering complex group dynamics that can be challenging for baboon...

Acharya, R., Rault, J.-L. 2020. Risk factors for feather-damaging behavior in companion parrots: A social media study. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 40, 43-49.

Studies on the etiology of behavioral problems often involve interference in the animal's routine or reliance on owners' self-reports like surveys. Gathering data from videos posted on social media, a technique coined ‘video mining’, offers...

Borland, J. M., Kim, E., Swanson, S. P. et al. 2020. Effect of aggressive experience in female Syrian hamsters on glutamate receptor expression in the nucleus accumbens. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 14, 583395.

Our social relationships determine our health and well-being. In rodent models, there is now strong support for the rewarding properties of aggressive or assertive behaviors to be critical for the expression and development of adaptive...

Arechavala-Lopez, P., Saraiva, J. L. 2019. Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes. Basel, Switzerland: MDPI, 132 pages.

This open access book is a printed edition of the Special Issue on Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes that was published in the journal Fishes. The PDF is free for download.

Rentsch, A. K., Rufener, C. B., Spadavecchia, C. et al. 2019. Laying hen’s mobility is impaired by keel bone fractures and does not improve with paracetamol treatment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 216, 19-25.

Keel bone fractures (KBF) in laying hens pose a severe problem for animal welfare as they are likely to be associated with pain and suffering. Furthermore, they are suspected to hinder or restrict hens in...

Chatigny, F. 2019. The controversy on fish pain: A veterinarian’s perspective. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(4), 400-410.

Fish welfare is still a relatively new field. As such, regulations and protocols to ensure fish welfare are currently limited and vary considerably in different jurisdictions. This is in part because of the ongoing controversy...

Sloman, K, A., Bouyoucos, I. A., Brooks, E. J. et al. 2019. Ethical considerations in fish research. Journal of Fish Biology 94(4), 556-577.

In this review, we focus primarily on the refinement of common methods used in fish research based on emerging knowledge with the aim of improving the welfare of fish used in scientific studies. We consider...

Hurtado-Parrado, C., Cardona-Zea, Á, Arias-Higuera, M. et al. 2019. Behavioral patterns of laboratory Mongolian gerbils by sex and housing condition: A case study with an emphasis on sleeping patterns. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 30, 69-79.

The behavioral patterns of Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) housed individually and in same-sex groups (siblings) were characterized. Gerbils were continuously video-recorded 24 hours (day 1) and 120 hours (day 5) after housing conditions were established...

Nie, C., Ban, L., Ning, Z. et al. 2019. Feather colour affects the aggressive behaviour of chickens with the same genotype on the dominant white (I) locus. PLOS ONE 14(5), e0215921.

Aggression in chickens is a serious economic and animal welfare issue in poultry farming. Pigmentation traits have been documented to be associated with animal behaviour. Chicken pecking behaviour has been found to be related to...

Miller, K. A., Hill, N. J., Carrasco, S. E. et al. 2019. Pharmacokinetics and safety of intramuscular meloxicam in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). JAALAS 58(5), 589–593.

Meloxicam is the most frequently used NSAID in birds; however, its elimination t1/2 is highly variable among species. Because zebra finches that require analgesia could benefit from receiving meloxicam, we performed a pharmacokinetic study involving...

Chatigny, F., Creighton, C. M., Stevens, E. D. 2018. Updated review of fish analgesia. JAALAS 57(1), 5-12.

Analgesics are an integral part of routine pain management in mammals, yet their use in fish is still limited. Some recommendations on the use of analgesics in fish are currently in the literature; however, information...

Wiley, J. N., Leeds, A., Carpenter, K. D. et al. 2018. Patterns of wounding in hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas) in North American zoos. Zoo Biology 37(2), 74–79.

In North American zoos, hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas) have traditionally been housed as single one‐male units (single male groups). In recent years, efforts have been made to house hamadryas in groups composed of multiple one‐male...

Coke, C., Skoumbourdis, E., Rodgers, J. C. et al. 2018. Blunting/cutting canines of adult male monkeys: A discussion by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum. Animal Technology & Welfare 17(2), 105-107.

"When you keep adult Rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) males, adult Cynomolgus (Macaca fascicularis) males or adult Vervet males (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), in the same enclosure, is it advisable to have the canines of the males blunted...

Langley, E. J. G., van Horik, J. O., Whiteside, M. A. et al. 2018. Individuals in larger groups are more successful on spatial discrimination tasks. Animal Behaviour 142, 87-93.

To understand how natural selection may act on cognitive processes, it is necessary to reliably determine interindividual variation in cognitive abilities. However, an individual's performance in a cognitive test may be influenced by the social...

Camacho, J., Morris, J. 2018. Breaking down the barriers: Social housing of previously single-housed adult baboons. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 5(4) (December), 55-57.

An important responsibility of each institution is to challenge preconceived notions that may limit social housing. At our institution’s center for comparative medicine (CCM), we recently challenged a historical mindset that 2 large (>25 kg)...

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...

Ross, A. P., Norvelle, A., Choi, D. C. et al. 2017. Social housing and social isolation: Impact on stress indices and energy balance in male and female Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus). Physiology & Behavior 177, 264-269.

Although Syrian hamsters are thought to be naturally solitary, recent evidence from our laboratory demonstrates that hamsters may actually prefer social contact. Hamsters increase their preference for a location associated with an agonistic encounter regardless...

Ludwig, S. C., Kapetanopoulos, K., Kotrschal, K. et al. 2017. Effects of mate separation in female and social isolation in male free-living Greylag geese on behavioural and physiological measures. Behavioural Processes 138, 134-141.

The presence of a social partner may significantly contribute to coping with stressful events, whereas dyadic separation generally increases glucocorticoid levels and, thereby, might also affect immune function and health. To study the covariation between...

Silva de Souza Matos, L., Palme, R., Silva Vasconcellos, A. 2017. Behavioural and hormonal effects of member replacement in captive groups of blue-fronted amazon parrots (Amazona aestiva). Behavioural Processes 138, 160-169.

Social species in captivity may face allostatic overload due to artificial grouping and other social constraints. In rescue centres, groups of psittacines are constantly mixed due to the arrival and/or release of individuals; this procedure...

Lalot, M., Ung, D., Péron, F. et al. 2017. You know what? I’m happy. Cognitive bias is not related to personality but is induced by pair-housing in canaries (Serinus canaria). Behavioural Processes 134, 70-77.

Recent studies suggest that cognitive bias could constitute a novel and valid measure of animal welfare. Although interest for a link between personality and cognition is growing, no study to date investigated whether a cognitive...