FIGURE 3.

Schematic of the relationship between early life experiences, the PVT, and consequences on adult behaviors. The PVT is engaged by emotionally-salient early-life experiences, both positive and negative. This activation may have enduring consequences in shaping behaviors later in life. Optimal early life experiences result in increased social play in both males and females and decreased fear expression in males. By contrast, ELA, as compared to control rearing conditions or optimal early life experiences, increases palatable food consumption and drug-seeking behaviors in females. ELA decreases social play, palatable food consumption, and drug-seeking in males and enhances fear expression in both sexes. These behavioral consequences may be mediated by activity in the PVT (Caldji et al., 1998; Arp et al., 2016; Molet et al., 2016; Bolton et al., 2018a, b, 2019; Levis et al., 2019; Ordoñes Sanchez et al., 2021).