A survey of recent literature revealed that non- human primates (NHP) are a small but important fraction of the animals used in neuroscience. Despite the massive use of cell lines in physiology research that started around the year 2000 the number of articles using live NHPs has continued to increase. The NHPs are, however, only used in experiments where other species or cell lines are inadequate. The majority of the experiments (>95 %) were performed on live NHPs and most experiments were chronic (80–90 %) i. e. the animals could experience the experiment at some point of time. Of all experiments about 75 % were of moderate severity and only about 2 % were substantially severe. The information given about the animals, experimental conditions and care, housing and husbandry was surprisingly poor in the articles. Information about species and number of animals was well provided (95–100%). Information about sex, age and weight was indicated in about 50% of the articles. Information of importance for animal welfare e. g. cage size and environmental enrichment was scarce - 10 % or less. In about 35 % of the articles describing experiments that would require anaesthesia this information was lacking. Much of the criticism on animal experimentation is based on ignorance and the misconception that animal experiments are painful per se. Scientists are very good at explaining about the benefit of the research performed on animals but rarely mention details concerning animal welfare and that almost no experiments are painful. In view of the current discussions within the EU about the use of animals in scientific experiments in general and NHPs in particular it is essential that the scientific community provide adequate information about how the animals are treated during experiments.