Adaptive plasticity refers to the ability of an organism to change and adjust its behavior, physical characteristics, or brain structure in response to its environment. It means that living things are capable of learning and modifying themselves to better survive in different situations or conditions.
Full definition
Sex differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the broader framework
of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development.
Together, these efforts have the potential to illuminate the genes, dynamics, and mechanisms that control
adaptive plasticity in the nervous system and may provide therapeutic targets to counteract neural disease.
This orchestration
requires adaptive plasticity, said the study's lead investigator, Massimo Scanziani, Ph.D., who at the time of the study was professor of neurobiology at UCSD before moving to UCSF.
Instead, the variety of environments in which humans seem to thrive highlights the «extraordinary level of
adaptive plasticity afforded by our capacities for learning and culture,» Laland and his co-authors noted in their paper.
The barnacle penis
shows adaptive plasticity — J. Matthew Hoch has shown that barnacles growing where waves are stronger have thicker penises.
Scanziani and his colleagues sought to understand the origins of
this adaptive plasticity by studying the eye movements in mice before and after disabling their vestibular ocular reflex.