The hypothalamic steroidogenic pathway mediates susceptibility to inflammation-evoked depression in female mice.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateAll animal experiments were conducted in accordance with the Chinese Council on Animal Care Guidelines, and ethics approval was obtained from the research ethics board at Gansu Provincial Hospital (Lanzhou, China), ethics approval number: 2023-410. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82001438 to Y.W.; 82160534 to Y.-H.L.), the Gansu Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (21JR1RA004 to Y.W.; 21JR7RA630 to Y.-H.L.; 21JR7RA650 to X.M.-Q.; 22JR11RA246 to Z.H.-W.), Hainan Province Clinical Medical Center (to X.-L.G.), and Start-up Fund for Recruited Professional Person with Ability of Hainan General Hospital (to X.-L.G.)."