feedforward

Feedforward is anticipatory control: the body launches a response to a disturbance before that disturbance has fully arrived, rather than waiting to detect the change and then correcting it. If feedback is steering by watching where you have drifted, feedforward is steering ahead of a curve you can see coming. It buys time by acting on a prediction.

A classic endocrine example is the cephalic phase of insulin release: the sight, smell, or even anticipation of food triggers a small early rise in insulin before blood glucose has climbed, so the body is primed to handle the incoming meal. The release of incretin hormones from the gut as food is absorbed similarly readies insulin secretion ahead of the full glucose rise.

Feedforward and feedback work together rather than competing. Feedforward gives a fast, predictive first move that blunts the size of the coming disturbance, while feedback then makes the precise corrections afterward. Pure feedforward would be error-prone because it cannot sense whether its prediction was right, which is why the body almost always pairs it with feedback.