Allostasis
Allostasis describes adjustments that meet environmental demands and maintain functional stability. The Chinese edition uses an explanatory translation as a reading aid and retains the English term for comparison with the research literature.
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At a glance
Maintaining stability through change.
Allostasis describes adjustments that meet environmental demands and maintain functional stability. The Chinese edition uses an explanatory translation as a reading aid and retains the English term for comparison with the research literature.
Whether a response is appropriate depends on the environment and the body's needs at that moment.
Stability through adjustment
Allostasis offers a way to understand changing regulation as demands change. Sterling's account emphasises anticipation and allocation of resources, rather than treating every change as a failure of regulation.[1]
What distinguishes a regulatory explanation?
Modern homeostasis is not simply a picture of an unchanging body. Ramsay and Woods examine how multiple regulatory loops interact, and why changing a measured value alone does not settle whether a response should be called homeostatic or allostatic. Reading this alongside Sterling makes the conceptual distinction more precise.[3][1]
An adjustment and its cost are different questions
Allostatic load concerns costs associated with repeated or prolonged adaptation. The adaptive process and its possible cumulative costs should be distinguished.[2]
A note on language
The Chinese edition uses an explanatory translation and retains Allostasis for reference to the original literature. When comparing authors, attend to how they define regulation, stability and anticipated demands.
References
- Peter Sterling (2012). Allostasis: a model of predictive regulation. Physiology & Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.06.004
- Bruce S. McEwen, Eliot Stellar (1993). Stress and the individual. Mechanisms leading to disease. Archives of Internal Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1993.00410180039004
- Ramsay DS, Woods SC (2014). Clarifying the roles of homeostasis and allostasis in physiological regulation. Psychological review. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035942
Publication record
TAP-CON-0002 · v0.3 · English
The Allostasis Project is founded and supported by Resilio.
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