We asked Dr. Sapolsky if he thought non-handled rats might feel more stressed than handled rats throughout their lives, because of the higher GC levels they experience.  His response to this question was to compare the behavioral effects of GCs to those of adrenaline.  Human injections of adrenaline cause people to think that scary things are scarier, get more passionate over things that make them angry, and react faster to happy stimuli.  GCs, on the other hand, are not correlated with as strong of a behavioral reaction.  There are many secondary effects of high GC levels that are measured, however the adequate behavioral testing on the effects of GC injections has not yet been done.  If Dr. Sapolsky were to guess, however, he would say that GCs do not cause rats to feel more stressed.  Click here to view Dr. Sapolsky address the idea of stress felt by non-handled vs. handled rats. (35:23-36:58).