• Early life adversity is an established risk factor for psychiatric illnesses such as depression and anxiety, disorders that display significant sex differences in prevalence, clinical symptoms, and treatment response.
• A translational mouse model combining prenatal and early postnatal stress demonstrated that early adversity lead to social subordination in both sexes, but induced patterns in behavioral flexibility, reaction to rewards and impulsivity that differed significantly between males and females.
• Early stress shapes the brains of males and females in completely separate ways. This challenges the previous male-centric view on stress psychopathology.