While the Psychology Community has been pondering the significance of Physical Evidence in their diagnostic measures, NIMH has taken "One Small Step" toward making physical diagnotsics of mental illness a reality.

In an article entitled:

Science Update
January 28, 2010

Genes and Circuitry, Not Just Clinical Observation, to Guide Classification for Research

Bruce Cuthbert, Ph.D. Director of the NIMH Division of Adult Translational Research has established the Research Domain Criteria Project. The projects based on the following:

...increasing evidence has emerged of overlap among the traditional diagnostic categories. People often present with more than one diagnosis. Evidence of overlapping genetics and implicated brain circuitry across traditional categories is mounting. As with cancers and infectious illnesses, mental illnesses once lumped together as a single disorder are beginning to be understood as multiple illnesses or subtypes that may stem from different causes and require different treatments.

The project is defined in terms of the following:

Rather than the usual diagnostic categories, participants will be selected on the basis of common problems in a particular behavior or brain mechanism. For example, a study centered on an impulse control circuit in the front of the brain might span samples of people with substance abuse, ADHD, impulsive aggression and pathological gambling. Similarly, people with all currently-defined anxiety disorders might be included in a study of fear circuit dysfunction. Clinical studies have also traditionally excluded people with overlapping, or "co-morbid," diagnoses. By contrast, RDoC studies will embrace such patients, who are more typical of "real world" settings.

Overall, the projects logic seems coherent but there are questions, at least in the public mind, regarding the effluency of the projects depth regarding Brain Research and Genetics as the field of Genetic Analysis is still isolated to individual cells and not functioning organisms such as the brain-

The foundations of the project are true while the hypothesis is in stark contrast to the hypothesis of other running NIMH projects such as the those published under The Human Connectome Project and the "Coherence Potentials" Project-

both are descriptions of Brain Function in terms of genetic disorder however, little is actually known about the brain beyond the singularity of Brain Cell Reseach which may or may not be generic in the formation of the brain... as there is gray matter and what not.

So it is a far leap to attempt a study of "overlapping" genetic outcomes, to say the least... especially at the formation of the brain stem in early prokaryotic stages.

The Philosophy of the study is firm but the Hypothesis of the study may or may not be mature as we continue to breach the barriers to our knowledge of physical perception.