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. 
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...

Prentice, P. M., Houslay, T. M., Wilson, A. J. 2022. Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1046205.

Chronic stress is a major source of welfare problems in many captive populations, including fishes. While we have long known that chronic stress effects arise from maladaptive expression of acute stress response pathways, predicting where...

Torgerson-White, L., Sánchez-Suárez, W. 2022. Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute. Animals 12(19), 2592.

Welfare is an individual attribute. In general, providing captive nonhuman animals with conditions conducive to good welfare is an idea more easily applied when dealing with few individuals. However, this becomes much harder—if not impossible—under...

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...

Seeley, K. E., Proudfoot, K. L., Wolfe, B. et al. 2021. Assessing allostatic load in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta). Animals 11(11), 3074.

Responses to stress are unavoidable, adaptive mechanisms in humans and non-human animals. However, in humans, chronic stress has been linked to poor health outcomes and early mortality. Allostatic load, the physiologic dysregulation that occurs when...

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...

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...

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.

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...

Solås, M. R., Skoglund, H., Salvanes, A. G. V. 2019. Can structural enrichment reduce predation mortality and increase recaptures of hatchery-reared Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. fry released into the wild? Journal of Fish Biology 95(2), 575-588.

Captive-reared fish often have poor survival in the wild and may fail to boost threatened populations. Enrichment during the nursery period can in some circumstances generate a broader behavioural repertoire than conventional hatchery production. Yet...

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...

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...

Chance, R. J., Cameron, G. A., Fordyce, M. et al. 2018. Effects of repeated anaesthesia on gill and general health of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar. Journal of Fish Biology 93(6), 1069-1081.

Fish are the second most widely utilized vertebrate group used for scientific procedures in the United Kingdom, but the development and application of 3Rs (the principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement) in aquaculture disease research...

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...

Phillips, B. E., Posner, L. P., Lewbart, G. A. et al. 2017. Effects of alfaxalone administered intravenously to healthy yearling loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) at three different doses. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 250(8), 909-917.

OBJECTIVE To compare physiologic and anesthetic effects of alfaxalone administered IV to yearling loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) at 3 different doses. DESIGN Randomized crossover study. ANIMALS 9 healthy yearling loggerhead sea turtles. PROCEDURES Animals...

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...

Monreal-Pawlowsky, T., Marco-Cabedo, V., Manteca, X. et al. 2017. Environmental enrichment facilitates release and survival of an injured loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) after ten years in captivity. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research 5(4), 182-186.

In June 2006 a loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) was admitted to a rescue centre on the Mediterranean coast with severe fishing net entanglement in its fore right flipper. The flipper could not be saved...

Bayne, K. A., Beaver, B. V., Mench, J. A. et al. 2015. Laboratory animal behavior. In: Laboratory Animal Medicine, 3rd edition. Fox, J. G., Anderson, L., Otto, G., et al. (eds). Elsevier, Inc., Amsterdam, NL. pp. 1617-1651.

The study of laboratory animal behavior has increased steadily over the last decade, with expanding emphasis on a variety of commonly used species. In the United States, this trend was initially focused on species for...

McCrossin, F. G. 2014. The effect of pair housing on the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis). American Journal of Primatology 76(S1), 54. (37th Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists Scientific Program, Abstract #52)

Aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) are thought to be solitary animals and are often housed alone in captivity. However, for all primates sociality is known to play a major role in psychological well-being. Captive animals can develop...

Bergman, T. J., Sheehan, M. J. 2013. Social knowledge and signal in primates. American Journal of Primatology 75(7), 683-694.

Primates are notable for having a rich and detailed understanding of their social environment and there has been great interest in the evolution and function of social knowledge in primates. Indeed, primates have been shown...

Coleman, K. 2012. Individual differences in temperament and behavioral management practices for nonhuman primates. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 137(3-4), 106-113.

This review will examine how individual differences in temperament might affect, or be affected by, behavioral management practices for captive primates. Measuring temperament may help us predict the outcome of social introductions. It can also...

Camacho, J. N., Boskovic, S., Moeller, E. 2012. Improved nonhuman primate social housing using visual cues associated for an intensive research study. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 636-637 (Abstract #PS35).

Lean management-based visual tools have been used to improve the quality of animal care associated with a complex research study involving immune-compromised cynomolgus monkeys (M. fascicularis) in various postsurgical recovery states. In order to effectively...