🔄 Rodent pain assessment

The intensity of " Facial action units' increases in response to post-procedural pain and could therefore be used as part of a pain assessment. The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) offers several grimace scales for mice, rats and rabbits ( link ).

 

🔄 Pain management in laboratory rodents

The Swiss 3R Competence Center (Dr. Pauline Jirkof) presents currently available methods for pain management in laboratory rodents and discusses their advantages and disadvantages ( link ).

 

🔄 Humane endpoints

This website of the 3R Center Utrecht Life Sciences (ULS) helps people refine their experiments, improve their knowledge of animal welfare and increase the quality of their research. It provides information on human endpoints and teaches users how to identify human endpoints in rodents and fish ( link ).

 

🔄 NC3R's Rodent Welfare Hub

The Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC) is a facility of the National Agricultural Library of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). AWIC provides comprehensive information on laboratory animal science and animal husbandry ( link ).

 

🔄 Reporting system for critical incidents in laboratory animal science (CIRS-LAS)

This critical incident reporting system is being set up by an interdisciplinary research group at the Jena University Hospital. Incidents can be reported by anyone and are always treated confidentially (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). Incident reports will be published in the members area after review ( link ).

 

🔄 RSPCA - How to Reduce Serious Suffering in Laboratory Animals

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a registered UK charity committed to animal welfare. The main goal of the RSPCA is to replace animal testing with humane alternatives worldwide. The RSPCA works with scientific institutions to inform about the severe suffering of laboratory animals and its reduction ( link ).