Accommodating Homeostatically Stable Dynamical Regimes to Cope with Different Environmental Conditions

Does the dynamical regime in which a system engages when it is coping with a situation A change after adaptation to a new situation B? Is homeostatic instability a generic mechanism for flexible switching between dynamical regimes? We develop a model to approach these questions where a simulated agent that is stable and performing phototaxis has its vision field inverted so that it becomes unstable; instability activates synaptic plasticity changing the agent’s simulated nervous system attractor landscape towards a configuration that accommodates stable dynamics under normal and inverted vision. Our results show that: 1) the dynamical regime in which the agent engages under normal vision changes after adaptation to inverted vision; 2) homeostatic instability is not necessary for switching between dynamical regimes. Additionally, during the dynamical system analyses we also show that: 3) qualitatively similar behaviours (phototaxis) can be generated by different dynamics; 4) the agent’s simulated nervous system operates in transient dynamic towards an attractor that continuously move on the phase space; and 5) plasticity moves and reshapes the attractor landscape in order to accommodate a stable dynamical regimes to deal with inverted vision.