MadSci Network: General Biology |
Yes, there are some processes that use positive feedback. Blood clotting is one such example. Bleeding causes a cascade of reactions to occur that "feed forward" to generate the next agent in the clotting process. Ultimately however the bleeding is stopped, thus the process terminates in a negative feedback step. There are some other examples in the endocrine system of hormones acting in a positive feedback mechanisim to cause the release of another hormone. In general, though, the majority of physiological processes use negative feedback. If you need more specific examples of positive feedback please let me know.
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