Brain and Cognition in the “Omics” Era

Abstract

The strategy of neural and cognitive markers as outlined in the introduction to the volume has been reinforced by some major research and theoretical developments. This chapter gives further consideration to these developments and includes some critical review. While the topics are greatly intertwined, they are described under specific subheadings below for ease of organization and explanation. A great deal of heterogeneity exists within and across clinical populations described by conventional diagnostic categories. This heterogeneity and comorbidity across psychopathology categories can be described in large part as complex functional permutations of a broad yet common set of neural systems and genes. Mental disorders are polygenic. Yet conventional diagnostic systems are ill suited to profiling differential patterns of expression arising from common genes and neural systems. Discrete categories are forced and have artificial and "fuzzy" boundaries. Symptom cluster-based diagnostic systems do not lend themselves to a scientific bridging with the biological systems that mediate the behavioral symptoms. They offer no interface for biologically based research initiatives-where mental disorders can be deconstructed along domains of perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes, mediated by complex neural systems. In response to these shortcomings, Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) is geared to a formulation of a new system by which psychopathology is described. It proposes a system that is a based on a biologically informed conceptual model of the brain and brain-mediated disorders that is supported by empirical data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)