Brain responses to pictures of children in men with pedophilic disorder: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Abstract

Structural and functional neuroimaging techniques have recently been used to investigate the mechanisms of sexual attraction to children, a hallmark of pedophilic disorder, and have reported many contradictory or non-replicated findings. Here, our purpose was to identify through functional magnetic resonance imaging the brain responses of 25 male outpatients with pedophilic disorder to visual stimuli depicting children (VSc) and to compare them with 24 male healthy controls matched on sexual orientation (to female or male adults), age, and handedness. No region was differentially activated across the two groups in response to VSc. However, as shown by a random-effects statistical analysis (cluster-level p-corrected < 0.05), in patients with pedophilia, but not in controls, the presentation of VSc induced a bilateral activation in the lateral occipital and temporal cortices, in particular in the right inferior temporal gyrus, as well as an activation in the declive of the cerebellar vermis. In addition, in patients the level of bilateral activation in the above-mentioned regions was positively correlated with ratings of perceived sexual arousal elicited by VSc. These results implicate these regions as possible candidate areas mediating sexual arousal in patients with pedophilic disorder.

Effect of Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation on the Neural Processing of Emotional Stimuli in Healthy Volunteers

“…Fourth, the number of fMRI images acquired per category might not have been sufficient to demonstrate significant effects. However, this experimental paradigm has been validated in a previous study on processing emotional stimuli [ 71 ]. Finally, the main post-assessments were conducted 3 to 5 days after the last rTMS session, which is a relatively long delay.…”

Development and Preliminary Validation of the Pedophilic Fantasies, Desires, and Activities Questionnaire

“…As part of an investigation ancillary to the first study, we performed functional neuroimaging using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to compare patients and controls on their brain responses to pictures of children and adults. The second study of the PFDAQ included a larger sample ( N = 40 patients, 39 nonclinical controls) and was part of a research project using functional neuroimaging—fMRI or PET—also purporting to compare patients and controls on their brain responses to pictures of children and adults (Cazala et al, 2019; Fonteille et al, 2019). To conduct preliminary validation of the PFDAQ, and because of the small number of participants of study 1, patients and controls of the first study were pooled with their respective counterparts of the second study.…”