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...

Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Štrbenc, M., Kuhar, U., Lainšček, D. et al. 2023. Rehoming and other refinements and replacement in procedures using golden hamsters in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research. Animals 13(16), 2616.

Effective vaccines are needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty golden hamsters were inoculated with two promising vaccine candidates and eighteen animals were used in pilot trials with viral challenge. ELISA assays were performed to...

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.

dos Santos Gauy, A. C., Bolognesi, M. C., Gonçalves-de-Freitas, E. 2022. Long-term body tactile stimulation reduces aggression and improves productive performance in Nile tilapia groups. Scientific Reports 12(1), 20239.

One concern of the Anthropocene is the effects of human activities on animal welfare, revealing the urgency to mitigate impacts of rearing environments. Body tactile stimulation (TS), like massage therapy, has emerged as an enrichment...

Camargo-Dos-Santos, B., Bellot, M. S., Guermandi, I. I. et al. 2022. Cannabidiol improves Nile tilapia cichlid fish welfare. Scientific Reports 12(1), 17650.

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a substance derived from Cannabis sativa, widely studied in medicine for controlling neural diseases in humans. Besides the positive effects on humans, it also presents anxiolytic proprieties and decreases aggressiveness and stress...

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...

Ramos, J., Balasch, J. C., Tort, L. 2021. About welfare and stress in the early stages of fish. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 634434.

In conclusion, the investigations carried out up to now demonstrate that during the early stages fish show high sensitivity to many types of stressors involving an array of responses to overcome alterations that could affect...

Archibald, W., Glynn, C. 2021. Refining cages for social housing of non-human primates on ADME studies. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(2), 172-174.

The assessment and understanding of Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism and Elimination (ADME) for new pharmaceuticals is required in regulatory submissions. Typically, ADME studies are conducted using metabolism cages designed for the single housing of animals to...

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...

Crailsheim, D., Stüger, H., P., Kalcher-Sommersguter, E. et al. 2020. Early life experience and alterations of group composition shape the social grooming networks of former pet and entertainment chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). PLOS ONE 15(1), e0226947.

The long-term effects of early life adversities on social capacities have been documented in humans and wild-caught former laboratory chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). However, former pet and entertainment chimpanzees have received little attention to date. This...

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...

Eichner, M., Garcia, K. 2019. Increase in morbidity and mortality in a shipment of red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans). Laboratory Animals 53(6), 634–640.

A cohort of captive-bred red-eared slider turtles, Trachemys scripta, was received from a commercial vendor. Shortly after arrival, several turtles presented as lethargic with subjectively pale skin and multifocal areas of cotton-like tufts in the...

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)...

Greenwell, P. J., Montrose, V. T. 2017. The gray matter: Prevention and reduction of abnormal behavior in companion gray parrots (Psittacus erithacus). Journal of Veterinary Behavior 20, 44-51.

Gray parrots (Psittacus erithacus) are popular companion birds, particularly noted for their ability to mimic human speech, their intelligence, and longevity. They are also prone to developing abnormal behaviors such as feather damaging behavior. This...

Sands, C., Evans, C., Buckmaster, C. A. 2017. The grooming sleeve: Encouraging conspecific-like behavior and strengthening the human-animal bond. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 5(2) (June), 52-53.

The act of grooming has been found to greatly decrease stress, heart rate, and cortisol levels in nonhuman primates; this decrease in stress and cortisol is seen in the animal being groomed, as well as...

Speer, B. 2014. Normal and abnormal parrot behavior. Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine 23(3), 230-233.

Behavior and behavior-associated issues are an important part of psittacine medicine. However, many veterinarians have an approach to parrots from the basics of handling and restraint to their assessment of behavioral issues (e.g., feather plucking)...

Wolfensohn, S., Hawkins, P., Lilley, E. et al. 2013. Reducing suffering in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 67(3), 169-176.

This report is based on discussions and submissions from an expert working group consisting of veterinarians, animal care staff and scientists with expert knowledge relevant to the field. It aims to facilitate the implementation of...