A Copernican Approach to Brain Advancement: The Paradigm of Allostatic Orchestration

The objective of this presentation is to explore historical, scientific, interventional, and other differences between the two paradigms, so that innovators, researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, patients, end-users, and others can gain clarity with respect to both the explicit and implicit assumptions associated with brain advancement agendas of any kind. Over the course of three decades, a series of brain-centric, evolution-inspired insights have been articulated with increasing refinement, as principles of allostasis (Sterling and Eyer, 1988; Sterling, 2004, 2012, 2014). Allostasis recognizes that the role of the brain is to serve as the integrative center for anticipatory regulation, to orchestrate operations across systems, and thereby support behavioral optimality for successful interaction with the environment at large. Because ensuing usage of the term “allostasis” by other investigators has sometimes not recognized the full significance of the brain-centric and cross-system perspective first put forth by Sterling, this article refers to the paradigm of allostatic orchestration (PAO), to point toward his original ideas and to extend them. The essay reviews the origins and principles of homeostasis and allostasis and illustrates their differences by considering how they approach the phenomena of blood pressure regulation and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It contends that the Sterling principle of allostasis is sufficiently different that ...
Source: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research