Neuroethology as a translational neuroscience strategy in the era of the NIMH Research Domain Criteria

The article by Latzman et al. in the current special issue utilizes a novel dataset consisting of behavioral, brain, and genomic data from a sample of 76 captive chimpanzees to make the case that negative affective expression is influenced by variation in the gene coding for arginine vasopressin receptor 1A (AVPR1A), in a sex-linked manner. A novel feature of this study is the ethological approach employed by the authors, i.e., the use of scratching as a behavioral indicator of negative affective state. I comment on conceptual and methodological aspects of this work, and consider how it interfaces with the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework as described by Kozak and Cuthbert in their article for this issue.