Executive Dysfunctions in Pedophilic and Nonpedophilic Child Molesters

Abstract

Introduction There is some evidence that child molesters show neuropsychological abnormalities which might reflect specific structural and/or functional brain alterations, but there are also inconsistencies in the existing findings which need to be clarified. Most of the different outcomes can either be explained by the fact that different types of child molesters were examined or by not having accounted for basically confounding factors such as age, education/intelligence, or criminality. Aim The present study therefore sought to determine whether pedophilic and nonpedophilic child molesters, compared to relevant control groups, show different profiles of executive dysfunction when accounting for potentially confounding factors. Methods The performance of 30 child molesters (15 pedophilic and 15 nonpedophilic) and 33 age- and education-matched controls (16 nonsexual offenders and 17 healthy controls) was assessed regarding several neuropsychological functions. Main Outcome Measures Scores on different neurocognitive tests and semistructured diagnostical interviews. Results Results indicate that pedophilic child molesters exhibited less performance deficits in cognitive functioning than nonpedophilic child molesters. Compared to healthy controls and nonsexual offenders, the pedophilic child molesters only showed executive dysfunction concerning response inhibition, whereas the nonpedophilic child molesters revealed more severe dysfunction, especially on tasks associated with cognitive flexibility and verbal memory. Conclusions These results enhance our knowledge about executive dysfunction associated with criminality and/or pedophilia, as they suggest different profiles of impairment between groups. In summary, data suggest that nonpedophilic child molesters showed more severe cognitive deficits than pedophilic child molesters. However, as response inhibition is associated with prefrontal (i.e., orbitofrontal) functioning, the deficits observed in both child molester groups indicate dysfunction in the orbitofrontal cortex. This has to be further examined with functional imaging approaches in larger samples and a full-factorial approach which allows for a clear distinction between criminality and pedophilia in a factorial manner.

Response Inhibition in Pedophilia: An fMRI Pilot Study

“…The authors of these studies concluded that pedophilic subjects display a more deliberate response pattern, which these authors related to stronger self-monitoring. However, the study by Schiffer and Vonlaufen [10] that also applied a go/no-go paradigm in pedophilia showed an increased error rate in comparison with controls, while RT did not differ. Unfortunately, this study did not report the two possible types of errors separately, so that we do not know whether the increased error rate in that study derived from commission or omission errors or from a combination of both.…”

“…While findings like a lower IQ [7], educational difficulties [8] or a higher rate of left-handedness [9] indicated a rather generalized brain dysfunction, other studies suggested focal weaknesses in frontal-executive [10] and/or temporal-verbal [11] skills.…”

“…Even more to the point, one has to keep in mind that especially older studies on child abuse did not differentiate between nonpedophilic and pedophilic child molesters. The importance of this distinction has recently been stressed by various leading authors in the field [13,14] and is supported by studies that demonstrated better executive functions in pedophilic than in nonpedophilic child molesters [10,15,16]. The notion that pedophilia is related to frontal dysfunction has moreover been challenged by studies in which pedophilic subjects displayed a slower processing speed but no increased error rate.…”

Forensic neuropsychological assessment: a review of its scope

“…The first issex offenders [34][35][36][37] . The second group involves criminals in a general way, e.g.…”

Impaired Attentional Control in Pedophiles in a Sexual Distractor Task

“…They, for instance, performed more poorly on inhibition (interference control in the Color–Word Interference Test). Pedophilic and non-pedophilic child molesters also seem to be impaired in simple response inhibition (24). They showed more errors, but no longer RTs in a go/no-go task compared to healthy controls and non-sexual offenders.…”