What is the Behaviorome and Why is it Important?

 

An acquaintance with the particulars of life is the beginning of all science.
                                                                                         Gordon Allport, 1942

 

The term “behaviorome” is defined as the set of all behaviors of an individual or a group of individuals. It is intended to be reminiscent of the term “genome” in both phonetics and meaning. Like the genome, the behaviorome of an individual is an extremely large and complex entity. Moreover, both the genome and the behaviorome exhibit similar, hierarchical patterns of complexity (whitepaper in preparation).

 

The behaviorome is of foundational importance for an understanding of psychiatric disorders, since the primary objective reality of psychiatric illness is something that resides in the microfeatures of behaviors occurring in the microevents of daily life. The behaviorome also includes behaviors that reveal affect as well as reports about inner mentation. It therefore is an essential window on the subjective reality of psychiatric illness. On this basis, we suggest that the behaviorome is a necessary foundation for a rigorous nosology of psychiatric disorders.

 

It is our premise that an understanding of the genetic contributions to psychiatric illness will require not only a complete description of the genome, but also a thoroughgoing characterization of the behaviorome. It should be noted that our approach differs from classical approaches that attempt to relate the high resolution information available for the genome to the low resoultion phenotypic information provided by categorical DSM-diagnoses. A major problem with such approaches is that they ignore the likely genetic heterogenity underlying psychiatric disorders.

 

The failure to make progress with classical approaches has led to the proposal that studies based on endophenotypes (phenotypic features of illness hidden from casual observation) may be more successful [Gottesman & Shields 1972, Gottesman & Gould 2003, Cuthbert & Insel 2009]. While the incorporation of endophenotypes increases the resolution of the phenotypic data and thereby the potential for dissection of heterogeneity, there is still the possibility that even greater resolution could be acheived by incorporating a thoroughgoing mapping of the behavioral exophenotype. Studies using manual methods support this possibility [Cleveland et al. 2009]. However, it must be emphasized that in the past, the automated methods needed for practical studies have been unavailable (see below).

 

In view of the above considerations and in view of the imminent availability of low cost whole genome sequences, we suggest that there is an urgent need to develop automated methods for mapping the behaviorome. It is this vision that has led to the founding of Behaviorome Sciences.

 

History of the Behaviorome Concept

 

This importance of mapping the totality of an individual’s behavior was previously appreciated by Gordon Allport [Allport 1937, Allport 1940]. According to Allport: “Psychology needs to concern itself with life as it is lived, with significant total processes of the sort revealed in consecutive and complete life documents.” Allport’s advocacy for intensive, long-term studies of individuals was largely unheeded for technical reasons. As seen in a Prototype Case Study carried out by the Founder and his coworkers [Cleveland et al. 2009], qualitative studies involving life histories, narrative accounts, and direct observations of single individuals in naturalistic settings are possible with manual diary and interview methods. However, manual methods require dedicated, if not heroic, efforts by both investigators and subjects. Technology for quantitative studies did not exist until the 1980s when very limited methods were facilitated by tools such as video cameras and computers [Mischel & Peake 1982]. However, to achieve a thoroughgoing, quantitative characterization of the behaviorome, much more advanced technology will be required.

 

Can the Behaviorome be Mapped at the Present Time?

 

A practical access to the behaviorome will require automatic methods that are sufficiently inexpensive to facilitate long-term studies of large numbers of individuals in a wide range of naturalistic settings. Of critical importance is the requirement that behaviors in naturalistic settings should not be perturbed by monitoring. The development of inexpensive, automatic, and unobtrusive methods for quantitative monitoring of behavior is a major technical challenge that has remained an elusive goal until the present time.

 

The possibility of practical and rigorous studies of the behaviorome at the present time has arisen as a result of a remarkable convergence of three revolutions: the MEMS revolution in sensor technology, the wireless communications revolution (cell phones and the internet), and the revolution in machine learning technology. It is the goal of Behaviorome Sciences to develop creative combinations of these separate technologies that will facilitate research and treatment of psychiatric disorders. As a first step towards automated behaviorome mapping, our current R&D efforts are focused on automatic methods for monitoring obsessive-compulsive behaviors in clinical trials.