In our study, IFN-α-treated mice were found to exhibit rapid and highly synchronized onsets of SLE and psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, deficits in sociability and cognitive impairment, mimicking the neuropsychiatric manifestations of NP-SLE and providing evidence of the critical role of IFN-α in brain physiology and CNS disorders. Here, IFNA1 is linked to major depressive disorder.