Abstract
The research domain criteria (RDoC) is an innovative approach designed to explore dimensions of human behavior. The aim of this approach is to move beyond the limits of psychiatric categories in the hope of aligning the identification of psychological health and dysfunction with clinical neuroscience. Despite its contributions to adult psychopathology research, RDoC undervalues ontogenetic development, which circumscribes our understanding of the etiologies, trajectories, and maintaining mechanisms of psychopathology risk. In this paper, we argue that integrating temperament research into the RDoC framework will advance our understanding of the mechanistic origins of psychopathology beginning in infancy. In illustrating this approach, we propose the incorporation of core principles of temperament theories into a new "life span considerations" subsection as one option for infusing development into the RDoC matrix. In doing so, researchers and clinicians may ultimately have the tools necessary to support emotional development and reduce a young child's likelihood of psychological dysfunction beginning in the first years of life.
Highlights
Initiated over a decade ago (Insel et al, 2010), the research domain criteria (RDoC) framework was introduced in response to a growing disconnect between clinical neuroscience and the classification used to understand psychiatric disorder
We provide evidence to support the claim that integrating temperament research – defined as a young child’s proclivities in experiencing and demonstrating affect, attention, activity, and regulation (Shiner et al, 2012) – into the RDoC framework will advance our understanding of the mechanistic origins that underlie psychopathology from early childhood and shape trajectories well into adulthood
Temperament researchers are uniquely positioned to infuse development into the RDoC matrix – emphasizing individual differences in dimensional neurobehavioral proclivities examined with an appreciation for maturational and environmental influences that shape functioning over time and across levels of analysis
Summary
Despite its relatively short tenure, the composition, merits, and shortcomings of the RDoC framework have been discussed extensively (Beauchaine & Hinshaw, 2020; Casey, Oliveri, & Insel, 2014; Cuthbert & Insel, 2010; Franklin, Jamieson, Glenn, & Nock, 2015; Garber & Bradshaw, 2020; Insel et al, 2010; Lilienfeld, 2014). Heightened response to threat, disrupted reward processing, and attentional biases have each been implicated as mechanisms that contribute to both anxiety and mood disorders (e.g., Buss & Qu, 2018; Casey et al, 2014; Dillon et al, 2014; Jarcho & Guyer, 2018) These areas of impairment cut across dimensions of positive valence, negative valence, and cognitive systems and are controlled by cortical–subcortical neural circuitry, which, in turn, is thought to modulate peripheral physiology and behavior. This approach emphasizes the utility of neurobiologically informed, transdiagnostic traits as starting points to understand childhood psychopathology risk In this way, temperament researchers are uniquely positioned to infuse development into the RDoC matrix – emphasizing individual differences in dimensional neurobehavioral proclivities examined with an appreciation for maturational and environmental influences that shape functioning over time and across levels of analysis
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