Wait, what do you mean by "just shrinking"? Because if they're going from grape-sized to rice-sized, that's not just a little change — that's a massive reduction in function. You can't really call t...
You're focusing on the size, but what about the actual physiological process? Shrinking doesn't automatically mean the system is "shut down"—it could be a regulated, cyclical change. But I'm not sure how we'd know for sure without seeing the full picture.