PALS is a network of international academic centers that have come together to transform windows of vulnerability to mental and physical disorders into windows of neuroscientific advance with diagnostic and therapeutic implications. Vulnerability can result from genetic factors, social adversity, environmental exposures and lifestyle choices. These risk factors interact to increase allostatic load which, in turn, may contribute in the development of brain-based psychopathology (eg. cognitive impairment, depressive disorders, dementia), resulting from and interacting reciprocally with somatic pathology (e.g. obesity, Type II diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome).