Why was exposure to the stress hormone so bad for the younger tadpoles? That’s the tricky part. High levels of corticosterone affects the function of other hormones and body systems. For the tadpoles, early and prolonged exposure to corticosterone threw all of these other hormone levels and biological processes out of whack. The effects were maladaptive, meaning that instead of helping the tadpole thrive and survive, the response made things much, much worse. In fact, early exposure often led not only to irreversible developmental changes but, eventually, to death. For instance, levels of
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