PLASTICITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does plasticity mean? 

• PLASTICITY (noun)
  The noun PLASTICITY has 1 sense:

1. the property of being physically malleable; the property of something that can be worked or hammered or shaped without breaking

  Familiarity information: PLASTICITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLASTICITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The property of being physically malleable; the property of something that can be worked or hammered or shaped without breaking

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

malleability; plasticity

Hypernyms ("plasticity" is a kind of...):

physical property (any property used to characterize matter and energy and their interactions)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "plasticity"):

ductileness; ductility (the malleability of something that can be drawn into threads or wires or hammered into thin sheets)

flexibility; flexibleness (the property of being flexible; easily bent or shaped)

Derivation:

plastic (capable of being molded or modeled (especially of earth or clay or other soft material))

 Context examples 

This gene is involved in synaptic plasticity and transmission.

(DLG4 Gene, NCI Thesaurus)

These interactions are involved in various activities, including synaptic plasticity, learning, memory and inhibition of neurotransmission.

(Glycine Receptor Binding, NCI Thesaurus)

Dr Meritxell Huch, who led the research, said: Our finding pinpoints TET1 as the protein that enables plasticity of the ductal cells and their regenerative capacity in response to injury.

(Regeneration mechanism discovered in mice could provide target for drugs to combat chronic liver disease, University of Cambridge)

This might explain how plants are able to continuously adapt their growth and development to cope with changes in their environment, which scientists call “plasticity”.

(Plants can tell time even without a brain, University of Cambridge)

It was another instance of the plasticity of his clay, of his capacity for being moulded by the pressure of environment.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"But some aphids are more sensitive to crowding than others. Figuring out why is key to understanding how this textbook example of phenotypic plasticity works."

(Virus genes help determine if pea aphids get wings, National Science Foundation)

Indeed, formation of protofibrils or aggregates and Lewy bodies (LBs) diminishes the availability of the physiological forms of alpha-synuclein, favoring an increase in TH (tyrosine hydroxylase) and DAT (dopamine transporter), but diminishes formation of vesicles and neuronal plasticity.

(Parkinson's Disease Pathway KEGG, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)

Composed of widely expressed or tissue-restricted 55-60-kDa calmodulin-binding catalytic subunit (PPP Phosphatase/PP-2B Family) and conserved 19-kD Ca(2+)-sensitive regulatory subunit, Calcineurin appears to regulate glycolytic metabolism, nuclear translocation of NFATC1 transcription factor, sperm motility, and dopaminergic signal transduction and NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity.

(Calcineurin, NCI Thesaurus)

A model used in behavioral neuroscience to study behavioral processes and plasticity, memory, learning and perceptual processes and underlying neural mechanisms such as the cellular changes and modulations in sensory transduction and their evolutionary control.

(Olfactory Learning, NCI Thesaurus)

After severe or chronic injury, the ductal cells become capable of generating both new hepatocytes and new ductal cells to replenish the liver tissue, through induction of an identity-switching process known as plasticity.

(Regeneration mechanism discovered in mice could provide target for drugs to combat chronic liver disease, University of Cambridge)