The RDoC framework: facilitating transition from ICD/DSM to dimensional approaches that integrate neuroscience and psychopathology

In 2008, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) included in its new Strategic Plan the following aim: "Develop, for research purposes, new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures". The implementation of this aim was named the Research Domain Criteria project, or RDoC. RDoC is a programmatic initiative that will fund grants, contracts, early-phase trials, and similar activities for the purpose of generating studies to build a research literature that can inform future versions of psychiatric nosologies based upon neuroscience and behavioral science rather than descriptive phenomenology. RDoC departs markedly from the DSM and ICD…