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Welcome to the Refinement Database

Search scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research and testing.


The Refinement Database, launched by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) in 2000, is a curated collection of published scientific articles and books on topics related to the refinement of housing, husbandry, care, and use of animals in research and testing. The database is intended to provide the most up-to-date information on best practices for improving or safeguarding animal welfare. It is updated every four months; the most recent update was made in July 2025.


  • Use the filters to search publications by Animal Type and/or Topic.
  • Most articles published before the year 2010 cannot be filtered by Topic. If you wish your search to include articles published before 2010, do not use the Topic filter. Instead, you can add a keyword to your search.
  • You can also add a keyword in addition to using the Animal Type and Topic filters to further narrow your search. For example, after selecting Topic: Environmental Enrichment, you could add the keyword "music" to refine your search to publications on music-related environmental enrichment. Or, you could add an author's name to search for publications by a particular individual.
7,975 total publications

Note: Adding a Topic filter will restrict your search to articles published in 2010 or later (see Search Tips).

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Showing 20 of 7,975 results

A computational model to support the welfare-based management of a laboratory colony of common marmosets (2025)

Gillard, J. J. 2025.

Here, a computational model to forecast the population dynamics of a laboratory colony of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) is presented. This tool supports decision-making that seeks to maximize welfare and maintain a healthy and genetically...

A cross-sectional study to investigate associations between flooring substrates and prevalence of limb and paw abnormalities of dogs housed in commercial breeding facilities (2025)

Stella, J., Gomes, P., Shreyer, T. et al.

Understanding the impact of environmental and management factors on the health and behavior of dogs housed in commercial breeding (CB) facilities is critical to their welfare. The specific aims of the study were to assess...

A gentling program decreases fear-related behaviour towards humans but not towards novel objects in broiler chickens (2025)

Stocker, T., Nawroth, C., Puppe, B. et al.

The human-animal-relationship is a crucial aspect of good animal welfare. Improvements in this regard might be particularly relevant for chickens, as their relationship with humans in commercial husbandry conditions is often limited to brief animal...

A guide for junior technicians: The importance of giving the correct amount of nesting in a mouse IVC and the benefits of an enriched cage (2025)

Pitcher, L., Stringer, A.

During our experience of working on the breeding floor of the University of Cambridge's Anne McLaren Building, we have recognised the importance of giving the correct amount of nesting and the benefits of additional enrichment.

A history of pain studies and changing attitudes to the welfare of crustaceans (2025)

Elwood, R. W.

Early discussions about possible pain in crustaceans often comprised speculation and anecdotes. Experiments to investigate pain took guidance from these early debates, and from studies on other taxa. Many experiments provided data that are consistent...

A literature review on equine bedding: impacts on horse and human welfare, health, and the environment (2025)

Masebo, N. T., Benedetti, B., Mountricha, M. et al.

Bedding is an important component of equine accommodation management. Choosing the right bedding is important for stable management and its selection may include considerations such as the sourcing of the material, the capital investment and...

A method to improve the housing of breeding rats used to produce pups for tissue (2025)

Booth, K., King, J., Stephen, J. et al.

Rats are considered highly social animals. In the wild, they live in groups and develop complex social structures. Regrouping rats is considered stressful. We therefore wanted to keep animals in monogamous pairs so that they...

A metric-based, meta-analytic appraisal of environmental enrichment efficacy in captive primates (2025)

Duncan, L. M., Pillay, N.

Non-human primates (hereafter ‘primates') constitute a common group of animals in captivity but their captive maintenance involves ethical and husbandry issues, many of which can be addressed through environmental enrichment (hereafter ‘enrichment'). Enrichment is often...

A minimally invasive marine mammal sex determination method using epidermal tissue recovered from suction-cup tags (2025)

Novak, S. X., Linsky, J. M. J., Knapp, K. J. et al.

For many baleen whales, minimal sexual dimorphism means that sex cannot necessarily be reliably determined through observation alone. Suction cup tags deployed for behavioral studies of free-ranging whales sometimes retain exfoliated epidermal tissue from the...

A new research tool for use in sharks and rays: relevance of reproductive hormone levels in the skin of small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) (2025)

Carbajal, A., Lobato, I. G., Agustí, C. et al.

The present study marks a significant step forward in validating the use of skin biopsies for measuring reproductive steroid hormones in sharks. Given the conservation concerns surrounding many chondrichthyan species and the growing emphasis on...

A new therapy to alleviate the inflammatory injury of piglet intestine caused by short-distance transportation—music (2025)

Fu, Q., Bai, B., Zhou, S. et al.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether music can reduce stress in animals by regulating the activity of the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal cortex (HPA) axis and reducing the concentration of cortisol. The control...

A positive-reinforcement training regimen for refined sample collection in laboratory pigs (2025)

Layton, R., Beggs, D., Fisher, A. et al.

Positive-reinforcement training of laboratory pigs can reduce the reliance on forced manual restraint and anaesthesia for sample collection, reducing stress and physiological disruption. Training regimens for laboratory pigs typically rely on specialised equipment for restraint,...

A single-dose pharmacokinetic study of metronidazole administered to Gottingen minipigs (Sus scrofa) by oral gavage or voluntary oral dosing (2025)

Cooper, D. M., Rainey, A., Rosenfeld, C. et al.

Oral gavage (OG) dosing can be stressful to pigs and is associated with the risk of complications. To evaluate a potential refinement, we compared the pharmacokinetics of a drug with a known aversive taste (metronidazole)...

A surgical recovery matrix to evaluate post-surgical recovery in mice using sham and myocardial infarction models of cardiac surgery as prototypes (2025)

Pal, E., Shokoples, B., Naik, S. et al.

Examinations of biomarkers are useful in measuring overall health. Endpoints are critical to assess the threshold where the scientific aim of the study does not prevail over the wellbeing of experimental laboratory animal. However, parameters...

A systematic review of the effects of musical enrichment on captive mammals (2025)

Alkalaj, M.

Forty two studies examining physiological, behavioural and cognitive mammalian responses to music were identified, with 38.1% of those studies focusing on primates. The studies identified included 23 mammalian species across six animal orders (Artiodactyla, Carnivora,...

Acute effect of short-term benzocaine anesthesia on the skin mucus microbiome of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) (2025)

Martins, P., Pimentel, T., Ribeiro, N. et al.

Routine aquaculture practices such as capture, transportation, and handling can disrupt the relationship between commensal and opportunistic bacteria in the fish skin microbiome. Anesthetic baths are a common welfare practice in aquaculture to reduce stress...

Adaptive wheel exercise for mouse models of Parkinson’s Disease (2025)

Skelton, H., Grogan, D., Kotlure, A. et al.

Background: Physical exercise has been extensively studied for its therapeutic properties in neurological disease, particularly Parkinson's Disease (PD). However, the established techniques for exercise in mice are not well suited to motor-deficient disease-model animals, rely...

Advances in technical methods and applications of subretinal injections in experimental animals (2025)

Song, C., Ji, Y., Wang, Y. et al.

The subretinal injection technique is an important intraocular drug delivery modality that allows access to the subretinal space to directly act on target cells or the administration of medications, markedly improving the therapeutic efficacy of...

Advancing non-human primate welfare: An automated facial recognition system for unrestrained cynomolgus monkeys (2025)

Numata, Y., Sumali, B., Hayashida, K. et al.

Cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) are vital in biomedical research, particularly for drug development and studying neurological diseases. However, accurately identifying individuals in group housing environments remains a significant challenge. This paper presents a near real-time...
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