The US National Institute of Mental Health developed the Research Doman Criteria (RDoC) to encourage psychopathology research that is organized around a behavioral neuroscience framework rather than the clinical descriptions that characterize the DSM. RDoC emphasizes continuously distributed biobehavioral dimensions rather than categories based on descriptions of behavioral symptoms. Biomarker research in general and endophenotype research in particular fit the RDoC scheme which emphasizes taking advantage of knowledge in neuroscience, genomics, and behavioral science to gain insights into psychopathology-relevant dimensional constructs. As others have noted, the brain systems focus of RDoC “builds on a fundamentally psychophysiological outlook” (Cuthbert, 2014, p. 1205) that “brings the realm of endophenotypes to the foreground of the research enterprise” (Miller & Rockstroh, 2013, p. 201).
