Theory 37/Plasticity vs Canalisation/Immunology
Flexible Immunity Forgets
The claim
Immune plasticity trades against memory stability, so a repertoire that keeps adapting to new variants loses durable protection against old ones.
01Mechanism
Repertoire turnover is required to meet new antigens and erodes the long-lived clones that maintain titre to previous ones.
02Prediction
Memory durability should fall as plasticity rises.
03Refutation
Durability independent of turnover would remove the trade-off.