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Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge (2022)

Chapter: Appendix A: Ontological Systems Referenced in the Report

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Ontological Systems Referenced in the Report." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26464.
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Appendix A

Ontological Systems Referenced in the Report

Ontology Brief Description Links
Cognitive Atlas A collaborative effort to describe how the human brain processes information, involving investigators with expertise in psychology, biology, neuroscience, neurology, linguistics, and other disciplines. https://www.cognitiveatlas.org/
PROMIS® A measurement tool for harmonizing measures of patient outcomes. https://commonfund.nih.gov/promis/index
NCI Thesaurus A regularly updated resource of definitions of biomedical terms and relationships among them that was designed to make it easier for researchers to share data. https://ncithesaurus.nci.nih.gov/ncitbrowser/
BioPortal A central website for locating biomedical ontologies. https://bioportal.bioontology.org/
Big Five Personality Traits A suggested grouping of personality traits. The grouping provides a model of the primary dimensions of individual differences in personality. https://dictionary.apa.org/big-five-personality-model
Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms A controlled list of standardized terms and definitions of psychological concepts with a loose hierarchy showing relationships to other terms. The controlled vocabulary allows for indexing, cataloging, and searching of psychological concepts. https://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/training/thesaurus
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Ontological Systems Referenced in the Report." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26464.
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Ontology Brief Description Links
The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) A dimensional classification system of a wide range of psychiatric problems. Hierarchical relationships in HiTOP allow for improved classification of psychopathology dimensions to facilitate research and clinical practice. https://hitop.unt.edu/introduction
Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) A taxonomy of psychopathology that integrates many levels of information from genomics to behavioral processes. RDoC provides a framework to understand the nature of mental health and illness in terms of varying degrees of dysfunction in general psychological/biological systems. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/rdoc
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) A classification of mental disorders using a common language and standard criteria. The DSM features descriptions of mental health conditions based on categories and is used as a diagnostic tool. https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm
International Classification of Diseases (ICD) A categorization system for physical and mental illnesses. The ICD classifies signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of illness or diseases. https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/classification-of-diseases
Behavioral Change Intervention Ontology (BCIO) An ontology with a defined set of entities and their relationships using a common language. BCIO is used to organize information in a form that enables efficient accumulation of knowledge and enables links to other knowledge systems. https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols/ontologies/bcio
Gene Ontology The Gene Ontology provides human-readable and machine-readable information on the functions of genes and has been designed to serve as a foundation for computational analysis of large-scale molecular biology and genetics experiments in biomedical research. http://geneontology.org/
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Ontological Systems Referenced in the Report." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26464.
×
Page 133
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Ontological Systems Referenced in the Report." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26464.
×
Page 134
Next: Appendix B: Example Use Cases Generated in a Committee Self-Survey »
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New research in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and other fields is published every day, but the gap between what is known and the capacity to act on that knowledge has never been larger. Scholars and nonscholars alike face the problem of how to organize knowledge and to integrate new observations with what is already known. Ontologies - formal, explicit specifications of the meaning of the concepts and entities that scientists study - provide a way to address these and other challenges, and thus to accelerate progress in behavioral research and its application.

Ontologies help researchers precisely define behavioral phenomena and how they relate to each other and reliably classify them. They help researchers identify the inconsistent use of definitions, labels, and measures and provide the basis for sharing knowledge across diverse approaches and methodologies. Although ontologies are an ancient idea, modern researchers rely on them to codify research terms and findings in computer-readable formats and work with large datasets and computer-based analytic techniques.

Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge describes how ontologies support science and its application to real-world problems. This report details how ontologies function, how they can be engineered to better support the behavioral sciences, and the resources needed to sustain their development and use to help ensure the maximum benefit from investment in behavioral science research.

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