Peptide signaling in the paraventricular thalamus is essential for disrupted adult reward behaviors consequent to early-life adversity [baseline dataset]

However, how transient ELA is encoded and how it dysregulates reward behaviors enduringly is unknown. One emerging key node of the reward circuit is the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT).

The PVT is the only area that distinguishes ELA from typical rearing in the mouse brain, and inhibiting specific PVT domains alleviates ELA-induced reward deficits in a sex-specific manner. Therefore, the PVT could be directly impacted by ELA, “remember” the ELA experience and mediate the consequences of ELA on adult reward behavior. Here, we first screen the translatome of PVT cells activated early in life (TRAPed cells) both at rest and in the context of reward, and identify genes that are regulated by reward in a sex-specific way.