{ "schemaVersion": 1, "capturedAt": "2026-09-16T14:58:43.401Z", "sha256": "dfb388994fa0b0116d5cfa8121ac827a66aff268677187a935e6eba108c16727", "work": { "kind": "article", "type": "FTR", "key": "models-of-allostasis", "id": "TAP-FTR-0008", "locale": "en", "path": "/articles/models-of-allostasis/", "title": "Models of Adaptation: What Different Frameworks Explain", "description": "Predictive regulation, cumulative costs, response ranges and resilience trajectories.", "rights": "© The Allostasis Project. All rights reserved. Reproduction or adaptation requires separate permission, subject to applicable legal exceptions.", "version": "0.3", "updatedAt": "2026-09-16", "editorial": { "contentType": "scientific-concept", "reviewState": "draft", "reviewedAt": null, "reviewedVersion": null, "updatedAt": "2026-09-16", "version": "0.3", "author": null, "reviewer": null, "workflow": { "ai": { "usage": "used", "system": "OpenAI Codex (GPT-6)", "scope": "Conceptual synthesis and source-linked educational preparation; not completed human scientific or methodological review.", "version": "0.3", "tasks": [ "Research assistance", "Drafting and bilingual editing", "Source-to-claim checks" ] } }, "revisions": [ { "date": "2026-09-16", "version": "0.2", "description": "Retitled the comparison to match its broader scope across adaptation and resilience frameworks." }, { "date": "2026-09-16", "version": "0.3", "description": "Clarified the subtitle to name predictive regulation and the different scopes of the compared frameworks." } ] }, "sections": [ { "id": "different-questions", "title": "Start with the question", "paragraphs": [ "A model selects relationships to explain. A useful comparison asks what it treats as the system, what changes, what it predicts and which observations could challenge it. The frameworks below overlap, but they are not interchangeable tests or a ranked list of theories." ] }, { "id": "predictive-regulation", "title": "Sterling: preparing for demand", "paragraphs": [ "Sterling’s 2012 account emphasizes anticipation, coordinated resource allocation and learning. It gives TAP a reason to include events before a challenge and behavior that changes exposure.[1]", "The argument is theory-led. Presenting it fairly includes identifying its assumptions, rather than announcing that homeostasis or feedback has been disproved. A compelling physiological example is not validation of every extension of the theory." ] }, { "id": "cumulative-costs", "title": "Allostatic load: the costs of adaptation", "paragraphs": [ "McEwen and Stellar connect stress and individual differences with cumulative physiological costs. This perspective directs attention to repeated or persistent adaptation across time.[2]", "It asks a different question from whether one response returns quickly. Neither fatigue nor the shaded area under an illustrative curve establishes a person’s allostatic load." ] }, { "id": "reactive-scope", "title": "Reactive Scope: ranges matter", "paragraphs": [ "Romero and colleagues distinguish mediator ranges supporting predictable and unexpected demands from overload and failure. Their graphical account considers how history and context can change those ranges.[3]", "A response range is defined for a mediator and an organism. Converting the drawing into universal human thresholds, or calling its width a measured reserve score, would require separate justification." ] }, { "id": "nih-resilience", "title": "NIH: define the system and follow its response", "paragraphs": [ "The NIH framework organizes resilience around a system, a challenge and the response over time. It includes resistance, adaptation, recovery and growth.[4]", "Its practical contribution is a research question: which function, following which challenge, over which interval? Citing this framework does not mean NIH has endorsed a TAP model or an intervention." ] }, { "id": "active-inference", "title": "A newer proposal: allostasis and active inference", "paragraphs": [ "Harrison and colleagues propose a theoretical connection between allostasis, active inference and resilience phenotypes, including actions that shape the environment.[5]", "Published as Hypothesis and Theory in 2025, it is an important comparison for new frameworks. Its four phenotypes should not be presented as established diagnostic categories. Linking allostasis to resilience is already part of the literature, not a new discovery by TAP." ] }, { "id": "what-tap-adds", "title": "Where TAP’s synthesis begins", "paragraphs": [ "TAP uses these traditions to organize three questions: what demands arise, how the system regulates, and what happens to specified functions over time. Physiological reserve is a potential contributor to a response, not the same thing as the trajectory observed after a challenge.[6]", "The proposed contribution is an explicit map between explanations, assumptions and possible measurements. Its value can be assessed by whether it prevents conceptual errors and supports better testable questions. The synthesis itself has not been empirically validated." ] } ], "references": [ { "id": "sterling-2012", "title": "Allostasis: a model of predictive regulation", "authors": "Peter Sterling", "journal": "Physiology & Behavior", "year": "2012", "url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21684297/", "doi": "10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.06.004", "pmid": "21684297" }, { "id": "mcewen-1993", "title": "Stress and the individual. Mechanisms leading to disease", "authors": "Bruce S. McEwen · Eliot Stellar", "journal": "Archives of Internal Medicine", "year": "1993", "url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8379800/", "doi": "10.1001/archinte.1993.00410180039004", "pmid": "8379800" }, { "id": "romero-2009", "title": "The Reactive Scope Model — A new model integrating homeostasis, allostasis, and stress", "authors": "L. Michael Romero · Molly J. Dickens · Nicole E. Cyr", "journal": "Hormones and Behavior", "year": "2009", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2008.12.009", "doi": "10.1016/j.yhbeh.2008.12.009", "pmid": "19470371" }, { "id": "brown-2023", "title": "Conceptualizing a resilience research framework at The National Institutes of Health", "authors": "LaVerne Brown · Barbara Cohen · Rebecca Costello · Olga Brazhnik · Zorina Galis", "journal": "Stress and Health", "year": "2023", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.3260", "doi": "10.1002/smi.3260", "pmid": "37182211" }, { "id": "harrison-2025", "title": "Resilience phenotypes derived from an active inference account of allostasis", "authors": "Laura A. Harrison · Antonio J. Gracias · Karl J. Friston · J. Galen Buckwalter", "journal": "Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience", "year": "2025", "url": "https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2025.1524722", "doi": "10.3389/fnbeh.2025.1524722", "pmid": "40416792" }, { "id": "whitson-2016", "title": "Physical Resilience in Older Adults: Systematic Review and Development of an Emerging Construct", "authors": "Heather E. Whitson · Wei Duan-Porter · Kenneth E. Schmader · Miriam C. Morey · Harvey J. Cohen · Cathleen S. Colón-Emeric", "journal": "The Journals of Gerontology: Series A", "year": "2016", "url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26718984/", "doi": "10.1093/gerona/glv202", "pmid": "26718984" } ], "claims": [] } }