Commentary: A Practical Guide for Translating Basic Research on Affective Science to Implementing Physiology in Clinical Child and Adolescent Assessments

Abstract

The National Institute of Mental Health recently launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). RDoC is a framework that facilitates the dimensional assessment and classification of processes relevant to mental health (e.g., affect, regulation, cognition, social affiliation), as reflected in measurements across multiple units of analysis (e.g., physiology, circuitry, genes, self-reports). A key focus of RDoC involves opening new lines of research examining patients’ responses on biological measures, with the key goal of developing new therapeutic techniques that effectively target mechanisms of mental disorders. Yet applied researchers and practitioners rarely use biological measures within mental health assessments, which may present challenges in translating RDoC-guided research into improvements in patient care. Thus, if RDoC is to result in research that yields clinical tools that reduce the burden of mental illness and improve public health, we ought to develop strategies for effectively implementing biological measures in the context of clinical assessments. In this special issue, we sought to provide an initial step in this direction by assembling a collection of articles from leading research teams carrying out pioneering work on implementing multimodal assessments (biological, subjective, behavioral) of affective processes in applied settings. In this commentary, we expand upon the work presented in this special issue by making a series of suggestions for how to most parsimoniously conduct multimodal assessments of affective processes in applied research and clinical settings. We hope that this approach will facilitate translations of the RDoC framework into applied research and clinic settings.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Kara Christensen, Katie Dixon-Gordon, and Vera Vine for their feedback on earlier versions of this commentary.

Notes

¹We would like to emphasize that there is a inherent tautology in seeking to apply the dimensional RDoC framework to differentiate between existing Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)–based diagnostic categories. However, DSM is currently the prevailing system for classifying psychopathology, so it is sensible that it would serve as an anchor for RDoC-inspired work. Future iterations of RDoC-guided work may increasingly reveal an independence between the RDoC domains and DSM criteria. Alternatively, such work may result in identifiable links between DSM-defined symptom criteria (albeit not contained within a given DSM diagnostic category) and functioning within or across RDoC domains.

²A growing literature has identified elevated tonic HRV/RSA as a marker of affective flexibility and good mental health (e.g., Appelhans & Luecken, 2009; Thayer, Ahs, Fredrikson, Sollers, & Wager, 2012).

³Although exposure has been primarily utilized in the treatment of anxiety disorders, there has been a growing interest in applying this technique to treating other conditions, particularly depression (e.g., Kumar, Feldman, & Hayes, 2008) and eating disorders (e.g., Steinglass et al., 2011). Similarly, mindfulness- and acceptance- and emotion-based treatments entail the practice of coming in contact with emotion-eliciting material in order to reduce subsequent reactivity (e.g., Barlow et al., 2004; Bilek & Ehrenreich-May, 2011; Hayes et al., 1999; Linehan, 1993; Mennin & Fresco, in press; Roemer et al., 2008). Consequently, many applied researchers and practitioners currently use therapeutic techniques that provide prime opportunities for assessing the temporal dynamics of emotion (i.e., tonic and phasic assessment periods).