“long-term damage to adolescent rat brains”
I keep hearing warnings from intelligent people that you shouldn’t trust conclusions drawn from rat studies because they are preliminary and usually sensationalized.
I keep hearing warnings from intelligent people that you shouldn’t trust conclusions drawn from rat studies because they are preliminary and usually sensationalized.
Makes sense empirically, malnutrition is known to have a large impact on later life, I can imagine the same is true for bad nutrition as well.
Just because the species can survive scavenging human trash doesn't mean individuals aren't running risks and getting hurt. Just because I always see some rats around the dumpster doesn't mean everything's going well for them.
"We assume that many wild animals are resource limited, and so expect that immune responses may be submaximal. However, in truth, high levels of immune responsiveness are, in general, seen in wild rodents." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694458/
It's part of why they are successful scavengers.