Fifth, researchers have grouped ASD genetic risk genes theorized to produce a narrowed set of disrupted brain circuits. Researchers have looked for an independent ASD brain impairment in syndromic ASD, defined as occurring with known genetic and environmental syndromes. Researchers have sought brain impairments unique to each core ASD diagnostic symptom. Researchers have proposed and tested models of unitary ASD brain impairment. Researchers have measured the brain structures of idiopathic ASD, defined as having no known genetic or environmental cause. Researchers have tried different means to find a unitary ASD brain impairment. The ASD diagnosis would be biologically valid if all or nearly all individuals diagnosed with ASD shared one or a few related brain impairments. 2015) and varied life outcomes (Fein et al. 2015), and ASD has been found with widely varied trajectories of development (Fountain et al. Researchers who studied infant siblings of children with ASD concluded no single early behavior could predict ASD diagnoses (Zwaigenbaum et al. 2014), and the long-term effectiveness of these programs is not yet known (Fernell et al. 2014), but these treatments are not unique to ASD (Losinski et al. 2015 Smith and Iadarola 2015 Volkmar et al. The only broadly successful ASD treatment has been early behavioral intervention programs (Kasari 2015 Schreibman et al. DSM-5 ASD research has found no specific effective pharmacotherapy or other medical treatment (Na Young and Findling 2015). 2016), but no ASD research findings have met the validity criteria of Weinberger et al. 445).Īutism spectrum disorder (ASD) research has been productive (Dawson 2016 de la Torre-Ubieta et al.

Nevertheless, RDoC is intended to provide scaffolding for a large-scale research program that will ultimately yield an alternative to DSM-ICD” (Lilienfeld and Treadway 2016, p. Instead, in the near term, RDoC and DSM-ICD are expected to coexist. But “For the foreseeable future, RDoC is not envisioned as a system of psychiatric classification in its own right. ( 2015) argued that the RDoC could not replace the DSM-5 psychiatric nosology (American Psychiatric Association 2013) or the parallel International Classification of Diseases (ICD) psychiatric nosology (World Health Organization 2012). The National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) responded by proposing the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework for a brain-based transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom nosology (Cuthbert and Insel 2013 Insel et al. However, in the past 30 years, clinical, genetics, and neuroscience findings have revealed that the DSM diagnoses are not biologically valid. The goal of the DSM-3 nosology (American Psychiatric Association 1980) was to create reliable and standard categorical psychiatric diagnoses (Robins and Guze 1970).

Asd dsm 5 research paper