In the short term, re-establishing a preexisting equilibrium, or homeostasis, is the classical example of a successful adaptive response, but this class is clearly broader. For instance, eliminating the challenge altogether by moving away from it is an equally successful adaptation. In the following, we will denote this broader class as “coping responses”. Over time, maintaining stability by establishing a new setpoint, or “allostasis”, may be viewed as an only partially successful adaptive response, which occurs in face of prolonged stress exposure, at the cost of chronic wear-and-tear to the organism (McEwen and Gianaros, 2011). Henceforth, we will use the term “long-term neuroadaptations”, or “neuroadaptations” for short, to denote the long term changes that occur in the central nervous system in relationship to this process.
