Introduction: Pedophiles show sexual interest in prepubescent children but not in adults. Research into the neurofunctional mechanisms of paraphilias has gathered momentum over the last years.
Aim: To elucidate the underlying neural processing of sexual interest among pedophiles and to highlight the differences in comparison with nonparaphilic sexual interest in adults.
Methods: Nine pedophilic patients and 11 nonpedophilic control subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while viewing pictures of nude (prepubescents, pubescents, and adults) and neutral content, as well as performing a concomitant choice reaction time task (CRTT).
Main outcome measures: Brain blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals and response latencies in the CRTT during exposure to each picture category.
Results: Analysis of behavioral data showed group differences in reaction times regarding prepubescent and adult but not pubescent stimuli. During stimulation with pictures displaying nude prepubescents, pedophiles showed increased BOLD response in brain areas known to be involved in processing of visual sexual stimuli. Comparison of pedophilic patients with the control group discovered differences in BOLD responses with respect to prepubescent and adult but not to pubescent stimuli. Differential effects in particular occurred in the cingulate gyrus and insular region.
Conclusions: The brain response of pedophiles to visual sexual stimulation by images of nude prepubescents is comparable with previously described neural patterns of sexual processing in nonpedophilic human males evoked by visual stimuli depicting nude adults. Nevertheless, group differences found in the cingulate gyrus and the insular region suggest an important role of these brain areas in pedophilic sexual interest. Furthermore, combining attention-based methods like CRTT with fMRI may be a viable option for future diagnostic procedures regarding pedophilia.
© 2011 International Society for Sexual Medicine.