Developing Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) to improve diagnosis and treatment of social deficits in psychiatric disorders: the Mirror Neuron System as a model.

Fig. 1. The Mirror Neuron System (MNS) describes a multimodal brain circuit underlying social cognition whose status can be successfully interrogated using several different established brain measuringmodalities (Fabbri-Destro and Rizzolatti, 2008). Perturbation in the MNS gives rise to perturbations in social cognition, and, in turn abnormal behavior and function. In this model, brain based biomarkers of MNS function could be used to 1) identify socially-relevant information processing perturbations inpeople that cut across DSM diagnoses, 2) identify putative treatments that ameliorate these MNS perturbations (e.g. oxytocin, social skills training) and 3) identify patients, independent of their DSM diagnosis, that may benefit from MNS targeting treatments. Developing Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) to improve diagnosis and treatment of social deficits in psychiatric disorders: The Mirror Neuron System as a model