The US' RDoC Program and the International BeCOME Study --- Getting to the Biological Basis of Behavior in a Morally & Ethically Responsible Manner

Conjecture

I think getting to the BIOLOGICAL BASIS of BEHAVIOR in a MORE SOPHISTICATED WAY is what the 21st Century is going to be remembered for.
 
HISTORICAL CAUTIONARY TALES & HAZARDS ABOUND ALL AROUND: 

• 20th Century Eugenics in the US and Nazi Germany
• A Modern FREE WILL Culture that is marked by MASS INCARCERATION and a failure to recognize the biological effects of even the most EXTREME TRAUMA or BRAIN INJURY.
• A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSION that's too incompetent to know it's incompetent ---
  • whether it's 20th Century lobotomies or
  • current "PERSONALITY DISORDER CLASSIFICATIONS" that still set people up for the Death Penalty in this Country
    • although not Colorado thankfully

The BIG IRONY in all of this -- and there are many ironies --- is that MODERN CULTURE has been marked in great degree by feelings of ALIENATION and ISOLATION.

We can't understand the BIOLOGICAL BASIS of HUMAN BEHAVIOR ---

• If we don't understand the INTER-RELATIONSHIPS between MULTIPLE SYSTEMS of the BODY.
• The INTER-RELATIONSHIPS of those SYSTEMS to the PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT.
• The INTER-RELATIONSHIPS of those SYSTEMS to the SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.
• The INTER-RELATIONSHIPS of NON-HUMAN, MICRO-ORGANISMS that live within us and affect our HEALTH & BEHAVIOR.
• Our RELATIONSHIPS to HISTORY including the PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE.

It is certainly looking like "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" in profound ways we never imagined.

BeCOME Study -- Biological Classification of Mental Disorders (2020)

Affiliations

1Department of Translational Research in Psychiatry, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Kraepelinstr. 2-10, 80804, Munich, Germany. 
2Department of Translational Research in Psychiatry, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Kraepelinstr. 2-10, 80804, Munich, Germany.
3Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany.
4Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation and Division for Cognitive Neurology, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
5Independent Max Planck Research Group for Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany.
6International Max Planck Research School - Translational Psychiatry (IMPRS-TP), Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany.
7Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, USA.

Abstract

Background
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A major research finding in the field of Biological Psychiatry is that symptom-based categories of mental disorders map poorly onto dysfunctions in brain circuits or neurobiological pathways.

Many of the identified (neuro) biological dysfunctions are “transdiagnostic”, meaning that they do not reflect diagnostic boundaries but are shared by different ICD/DSM diagnoses.

The compromised biological validity of the current classification system for mental disorders impedes rather than supports the development of treatments that not only target symptoms but also the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.

The Biological Classification of Mental Disorders (BeCOME) study aims to identify biology-based classes of mental disorders that improve the translation of novel biomedical findings into tailored clinical applications.