Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29361992›Full record

ArticleThe Behavioral and brain sciences2018

Brain disorders? Not really: Why network structures block reductionism in psychopathology research.

Denny Borsboom, Angélique O J Cramer, Annemarie Kalis

Abstract read
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In one paragraph

Article in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 120 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
120citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

120 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Psychological Network of Stress, Coping and Social Support in an Aboriginal Population.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
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  11. The success-failure inversion in modern medicine.Frontiers in public health · 2026
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60 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Denny BorsboomDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. d.borsboom@uva.nlhttps://www.dennyborsboom.com.
Angélique O J CramerDepartment of Methodology and Statistics, Tilburg University, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands. aoj.cramer@gmail.comhttps://www.aojcramer.com.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2128-0331
Annemarie KalisDepartment of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, 3512 BL Utrecht, The Netherlands. A.Kalis@uu.nlhttps://www.uu.nl/staff/AKalis.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8574-492X

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. The intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders, however, has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this target article, we show that this conceptualization can help explain why reductionist approaches in psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition; in symptom networks, there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and, as such, feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to depend partially on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion of real patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders.

Indexed as

networksphilosophypsychometricspsychopathologyreductionism

Identifiers

PMID29361992

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.