{"id":63561,"date":"2016-02-21T22:15:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T03:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=63561"},"modified":"2016-02-21T23:49:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T04:49:47","slug":"rdoc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/21\/rdoc\/","title":{"rendered":"RDoC…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail<\/font><\/em>.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether you attribute the quote to Mark Twain or to Abraham Maslow, the meaning is clear. Which brings me to Aaron Beck<\/font>, Sigmund Freud<\/font>, and Tom Insel<\/font> [OK, actually to Tom Insel<\/font>]. When a new chairman appeared in my department in the early 1980s, there was a period when we had some interesting discussions. I was a psychoanalytic candidate, was directing a major program in his department [the residency], and was also teaching the major medical school course. We talked about a lot of things in the getting-to-know-you period. He was pretty iconoclastic about almost anything I said, talking excitedly about the future with genetics, biomarkers, PET Scanners, and psychopharmacology. When our honeymoon was over, I was moving on, but I never forgot those talks – because I’ve heard them in one form or another from one person or another for the ensuing decades. The classic version came from Dr. Insel’s Psychiatry-as-Clinical-Neuroscience<\/font><\/a> meme where he literally plotted out our future based on the same new<\/font><\/em> technologies my new<\/font><\/em> chairman had outlined twenty years earlier. If there were ever a man with a hammer, it was Tom Insel:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In 2009, Dr. Insel started writing his Director blogs, many of which were about even newer technologies and the progress they promised. About that same time, we began to hear about something new:<\/div>\n
\n
“Can we develop a clinically useful diagnostic system based on neuroscience and genetics?  Not yet.  But, in the spirit of beginning a long journey, NIMH is taking its first step with the Research Domain Criteria [RDoC]<\/a> project. RDoC<\/font> makes no assumptions about current categories”…<\/div>\n
“Our vision is a new classification with high reliability and validity based on a deep understanding of the neural basis of mental disorders.”<\/div>\n
Re-Thinking Classification of Mental Disorders<\/a> |February 1, 2010|<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Then just prior to the release of the DSM-5 in 2013, he announced that the RDoC was replacing it as the official diagnostic system of the NIMH [Transforming Diagnosis<\/a>]. Time passed, and in August of last year, he returned from a tour of high-tech companies, enthusiastic about what he’d seen in this travels:<\/div>\n
\n
“While the focus of wearable technology and online apps has thus far mostly been for managing heart disease and diabetes, the tech approach may be best suited for mental health. The biomarkers for depression and psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder are likely to be objective measures of cognition and behavior, which can be collected by smartphones. Some of our most effective interventions are psychosocial treatments that can be delivered or extended by smartphones and tablets. Most important, the sensors and the interventions can be integrated into a closed loop so that care is continuous and iterative. Increasing symptoms, suicidal impulses, and paranoid thoughts lead immediately to an intervention.” <\/div>\n
Look who is getting into mental health research<\/a> |August 31, 2015|<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
We didn’t yet know it, but his summer tour of the high tech world was also a job search, and within a few weeks, he announced he was stepping down [ambivalence…<\/a>] to sign on with Google. In the multiple interviews about why he was leaving, this one sounded close to the center to me:<\/div>\n
\n
Why did you leave the National Institute of Mental Health to work for Google?<\/font><\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
I have to confess that after giving heart and soul to mental-health problems over the last 13 years working in government, I have not seen any improvement for either morbidity or mortality for serious mental illness – so I’m ready to try a different approach. If it means using the tools available in the private sector, let’s go for it.<\/div>\n
Are you saying Google is a better place to do mental-health research than the NIMH?<\/font><\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but I don’t think complicated problems like early detection of psychosis or finding ways to get more people with depression into optimal care are ever going to be solved solely by government or the private sector, or through philanthropy. Five years ago, the NIMH launched a big project to transform diagnosis<\/a>. But did we have the analytical firepower to do that? No. If anybody has it, companies like IBM, Apple or Google do – those kinds of high-powered tech engines…<\/div>\n
Brain expert: Why I jumped ship to Google<\/a> |Nov 4, 2015|<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
You could read his comments as blaming, like the NIMH let him down – didn’t live up to his expectations – didn’t provide him with "the analytical firepower" he needed to develop his RDoC. For most of us, all we know is what the RDoC isn’t, but only know about what it is in the vaguest of general terms. So we can’t possibly have a clue what he’s talking about, how the absence of "the analytical firepower" let him down. Is he saying that the RDoC is a bust too, like the DSM-5? It has seemed to me that the question at hand is pretty clear. Is the RDoC an Insel-ism, a part of his clinical neuroscience monomania? something that needs to exit along with him and his hammer? already an anachronism before we even got to know it? Or is it a viable and valuable legacy that ought it be pursued? <\/div>\n

Somebody in the NIMH must’ve known some of us were thinking these thoughts, because this month’s issue of Psychophysiology<\/font><\/em> is devoted entirely to the RDoC. It starts with a couple of articles explaining the RDoC and how it came to be in existence, followed by a number of investigators using this new system. The whole issue is freely avaliable on-line. So I guess we can’t complain that they haven’t really told us what’s going on. The ball’s in our court now, and here are the links:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n <\/tr>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nReshaping clinical science: Introduction to the Special Issue on Psychophysiology and the NIMH Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] initiative<\/a> [pages 281–285]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Christopher J. Patrick and Greg Hajcak<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nThe NIMH Research Domain Criteria Initiative: Background, Issues, and Pragmatics <\/a>[pages 286–297]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Michael J. Kozak and Bruce N. Cuthbert<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nStudying auditory verbal hallucinations using the RDoC framework<\/a> [pages 298–304]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Judith M. Ford<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Commentaries<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nStudies of auditory verbal hallucinations<\/a> [pages 305–307]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Stephan Heckers<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nAchieving success with the Research Domain Criteria [RDoC]: Going beyond the matrix<\/a> [pages 308–311]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby William G. Iacono<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nPanic disorder with agoraphobia from a behavioral neuroscience perspective: Applying the research principles formulated by the Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] initiative <\/a>[pages 312–322]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Alfons O. Hamm, Jan Richter, Christiane Pan\u00e9-Farr\u00e9, Dorte Westphal, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, Anna N. Vossbeck-Elsebusch, Alexander L. Gerlach, Andrew T. Gloster, Andreas Ströhle, Thomas Lang, Tilo Kircher, Antje B. M. Gerdes, Georg W. Alpers, Andreas Reif and Jürgen Deckert<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Commentaries<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nReconciling RDoC and DSM approaches in clinical psychophysiology and neuroscience<\/a> [pages 323–327]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Lisa M. McTeague<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nTaking an RDoC lens to the study of panic disorder: A commentary on Hamm et al. and other thoughts on RDoC <\/a>[pages 328–331]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Stewart A. Shankman, Andrea C. Katz and Scott A. Langenecker <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nApplying Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] to the study of fear and anxiety: A critical comment<\/a> [pages 332–335]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Lori A. Zoellner and Edna B. Foa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nRDoC, DSM, and the reflex physiology of fear: A biodimensional analysis of the anxiety disorders spectrum<\/a> [pages 336–347]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Peter J. Lang, Lisa M. McTeague and Margaret M. Bradley<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Commentaries<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nPsychophysiology of threat response, paradigm shifts in psychiatry, and RDoC: Implications for genetic investigation of psychopathology<\/a> [pages 348–350]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby John M. Hettema<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nThe RDoC initiative and the structure of psychopathology <\/a>[pages 351–354]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Robert F. Krueger and Colin G. DeYoung<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nDisplacement behaviors in chimpanzees [Pan troglodytes]: A neurogenomics investigation of the RDoC Negative Valence Systems domain<\/a> [pages 355–363]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Robert D. Latzman, Larry J. Young and William D. Hopkins<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Commentaries<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nNeuroethology as a translational neuroscience strategy in the era of the NIMH Research Domain Criteria<\/a> [pages 364–366]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby John H. Krystalb<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nUsing the NIMH Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] in human and nonhuman primate research<\/a> [pages 367–371]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Dario Maestripieri and Scott O. Lilienfeld<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nError-related negativity [ERN] and sustained threat: Conceptual framework and empirical evaluation in an adolescent sample <\/a>[pages 372–385]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Anna Weinberg, Alexandria Meyer, Emily Hale-Rude, Greg Perlman, Roman Kotov, Daniel N. Klein and Greg Hajcak<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Commentaries<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nThe NIMH Research Domain Criteria initiative and error-related brain activity<\/a> [pages 386–388]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Gregory L. Hanna and William J. Gehring<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nThe error-related negativity: A transdiagnostic marker of sustained threat?<\/a> [pages 389–392]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Cecile D. Ladouceur<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nPsychoneurometric operationalization of threat sensitivity: Relations with clinical symptom and physiological response criteria <\/a>[pages 393–405]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby James R. Yancey, Noah C. Venables and Christopher J. Patrick <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Commentaries<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nPsychobiological operationalization of RDoC constructs: Methodological and conceptual opportunities and challenges<\/a> [pages 406–409]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Annmarie MacNamara and K. Luan Phan<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nPsychophysiology as a core strategy in RDoC<\/a> [pages 410–414]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Gregory A. Miller, Brigitte S. Rockstroh, Holly K. Hamilton and Cindy M. Yee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original Articles<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nRDoC: Translating promise into progress<\/a> [pages 415–424]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\nby Christopher J. Patrick and Greg Hajcak<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Whether you attribute the quote to Mark Twain or to Abraham Maslow, the meaning is clear. Which brings me to Aaron Beck, Sigmund Freud, and Tom Insel [OK, actually to Tom Insel]. When a new chairman appeared in my department in the early 1980s, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63561"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63585,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63561\/revisions\/63585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}