title: Can RDoC Help Find Order in Thought Disorder?
abstract: Thought disorder is a pernicious and nonspecific aspect of numerous serious mental illnesses (SMIs) and related conditions. Despite decades of empirical research on thought disorder, our present understanding of it is poor, our clinical assessments focus on a limited set of extreme behaviors, and treatments are palliative at best. Applying a Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework to thought disorder research offers advantages to explicate its phenotype; isolate its mechanisms; and develop more effective assessments, treatments, and potential cures. In this commentary, we discuss ways in which thought disorder can be understood within the RDoC framework. We propose operationalizing thought disorder within the RDoC construct of language using psycholinguistic sciences, to help objectify and quantify language within individuals; technologically sophisticated paradigms, to allow naturalistic behavioral sampling techniques with unprecedented ecological validity; and computational modeling, to account for a network of interconnected and dynamic linguistic, cognitive, affective, and social functions. We also highlight challenges for understanding thought disorder within an RDoC framework. Thought disorder likely does not occur as an isomorphic dysfunction in a single RDoC construct, but rather, as multiple potential dysfunctions in a network of RDoC constructs. Moreover, thought disorder is dynamic over time and context within individuals. In sum, RDoC is a useful framework to integrate multidisciplinary research efforts aimed at operationalizing, understanding, and ameliorating thought disorder.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
authors.forename: Alex S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
authors.forename: Thanh P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Le
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
authors.forename: Taylor L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Fedechko
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Tromsø-The Arctic University of Norway, Norway.|Norwegian Centre for eHealth Research, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway.
authors.forename: Brita
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Elvevåg
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000145:classification*; D009315:National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) / Q000592:standards*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D014481:United States
keywords: computational psychiatry; disorganization; language; psycholinguistics; schizophrenia; serious mental illness