The National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria

The United States National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative offers a framework to facilitate integrative research to clarify core mechanisms of human mental distress and dysfunction. The RDoC was developed to provide an alternative to research, designed around clinical syndromes based on descriptive diagnosis. Rather than beginning with a syndrome and then working ‘down’ to clarify mechanisms, the aim of the RDoC is to guide research that begins with disruptions in neurobiological and behavioural mechanisms, and then works across systems to clarify connections among such disruptions and clinical symptoms. The RDoC also departs from widely accepted categorical diagnoses, instead advocating a dimensional account of clinically significant variance in disrupted mechanisms and symptoms. The need for the RDoC stemmed from the realization that psychopathology research was not keeping pace with advances in clinical neuroscience and behavioural science, and the recognition that the cycle of scientific progress has been hampered by the instantiation of DSM diagnoses as the starting point of psychiatric research design. This chapter details the rationale and development of the RDoC and describes their structure. Some practical considerations and theoretical matters for implementing the RDoC alternative are considered.

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Searching for the Big Pictures

Perspectives on Psychological Science ◽

10.1177/1745691619896255 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 817-830

Author(s):

Stephen K. Reed

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Cognitive Psychology ◽

Mental Health Research ◽

Practical Significance ◽

Research Domain Criteria ◽

General Audience ◽

Formal Ontologies ◽

Psychological Knowledge ◽

Research Domain

My goal in searching for the big pictures is to discover novel ways of organizing information in psychology that will have both theoretical and practical significance. The first section lists my reasons for writing each of five articles. The second section discusses an additional five articles that integrate advancements in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology. The following two sections elaborate on my collaboration with ontologists to use formal ontologies to organize psychological knowledge, including the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria, for formulating a biological basis for mental illness. I next discuss strategies for writing integrative articles. The following section describes the helpfulness of the integrations for making psychology relevant to a general audience. I conclude with recommendations for creating breadth in doctoral training.

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Global mental health and the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria

International Journal of Social Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/0020764018778704 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 64 (5) ◽

pp. 436-442 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Stevan Merill Weine ◽

Scott Langenecker ◽

Aliriza Arenliu

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Global Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Research ◽

Targeted Prevention ◽

Research Domain Criteria ◽

Middle Income ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

New Research ◽

Research Domain

Background: The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project presents innovative ways of investigating mental illness based on behavioral and neurobiological measures of dimensional processes. Although cultural psychiatrists have critiqued RDoC’s implications and limitations for its under-developed focus on context and experience, RDoC presents opportunities for synergies with global mental health. It can capture aspects of clinical or sub-clinical behavior which are less dependent upon Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5) and perhaps better elucidate the role of culture in disease expression and resilience. Aim/Results: This article uses the example of migration to describe several starting points for new research: (1) providing components for building an investigable conceptual framework to understand individual’s mental health, resilience and adjustment to migration challenges or social adversities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and (2) identifying measurable factors which determine resilience or vulnerability, to guide development and evaluation of targeted prevention, treatment and recovery strategies for mental health in LMICs. Conclusion: In such ways, RDoC frameworks could help put the new cutting edge neurobiological dimensional scientific advances in a position to contribute to addressing mental health problems amid social adversities in LMICs. However, this would require a much-expanded commitment by both RDoC and global mental health researchers to address contextual and experiential dimensions.

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