Sartorius, A., Ruf, M., Kief, C., Demirakca, T., Bailer, J., Ende, G., Henn, F. A., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Dressing, H. (August 2008) Abnormal amygdala activation profile in pedophilia. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci, 258 (5). pp. 271-7. ISSN 0940-1334 (Print)0940-1334 (Linking)
Abstract
Despite considerable public interest research in neurobiological correlates of pedophilia is scarce. Since amygdala activation is central for emotional valuation, arousal, and salience, we investigated the activation profile of this structure in 10 male subjects with pedophilia (exclusively attracted to boys), all convicted sex-offenders and sentenced to forensic psychiatric treatment along with ten male heterosexual matched controls. We used a sexually non-explicit functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) paradigm with images of men, women, boys or girls randomly embedded in neutral target/non-target geometrical symbols. We applied statistical parametric mapping (SPM2) and SPSS 14 for image processing and analysis. While controls activated significantly less to pictures of children compared to adults, the activation profile was reversed in subjects with pedophilia, who exhibited significantly more activation to children than adults. The highest activation was observed for boys in the patient group, and for women in control participants. Our data show enhanced activation to children's pictures even in an incidental context and suggest the provocative hypothesis that a normally present mechanism for reduced emotional arousal for children relative to adults is reversed in pedophilia, suggesting a neural substrate associated with deviant sexual preference in this condition. More extensive research in this field would be of benefit for both the victims and the offenders.
| Item Type: | Paper |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Adult Amygdala/ physiopathology Brain/ physiopathology Dominance, Cerebral/physiology Functional Laterality/physiology Heterosexuality/physiology/psychology Humans Image Processing, Computer-Assisted Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods Male Pedophilia/ physiopathology/psychology Photic Stimulation/methods Psychomotor Performance/ physiology Sexual Behavior/ physiology/psychology |
| Subjects: | organism description > animal behavior organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > organs types and functions > brain organism description > animal > mammal > primates > hominids > human organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > organs types and functions organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions |
| CSHL Authors: | |
| Communities: | CSHL labs > Henn lab |
| Depositing User: | Matt Covey |
| Date: | August 2008 |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Feb 2013 16:40 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Feb 2013 16:40 |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/27485 |
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