Simultaneous quantification of seven hippocampal neurotransmitters in depression mice by LC–MS/MS

•It is a new method to detect seven neurotransmitters simultaneously by LC–MS/MS.•Long-term corticosteroid inhibited Epi production and increased 5-HT turnover.•Altered neurotransmitter profile is in corticosterone induced depression mouse. There is no method available to simultaneously detect GABA, Glu, Epi, NE, DA, 5-HT and 5-HIAA in mouse hippocampus. A rapid and sensitive LC–MS/MS method has been developed for simultaneously measuring seven neurotransmitters in mouse hippocampus. The analytes were detected in positive mode with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) and the procedure was completed in less than 9min. This method exhibited excellent linearity for all of the analytes with regression coefficients higher than 0.99, and showed good intra- and inter-day precisions (RSD