Adaptation
Why is it that Koreans can eat kimchi 3 times a day, and if I take one bite my face turns red and my nose sweats and I start to cry?
Why do crack addicts need more and more crack as time goes by?
Why is it that I can see equally well inside and outside even though it’s more than 100x brighter outside?
The answer to all these questions is adaptation. Biological signaling systems (like the signaling systems that perceive hot peppers, crack, or light) respond to sustained signals by adapting. The result is that over time, you get less output from the system even though you give the same input.
Thus, if we want to study the effect of a given input to a biological system, we want to study “the first response” - before the system has time to adapt.
One way to prevent your system from adapting is to use a drug-inducible dimerization system (A:FRB + FKBP:B + rapamycin = A:B). This allows you to add the drug and start the clock so you can measure the dynamic response before the system has a chance to adapt.
