Neuropsychological impairment in pedophiles.

Abstract

Heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual pedophiles were compared to nonviolent nonsex offenders using the Reitan Neuropsychological test battery, the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological test battery, Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale, and CT scans. The men were classified into their groups based on criminal history, a standard Sex History assessment, and a phallometric test of erotic preference. Pedophiles tended to have lower IQ's than controls and showed significantly more impairment on all measures. Left temporo-parietal pathology was noted more often for pedophiles. Results were not changed appreciably when history of alcohol and drug abuse or age variation were taken into account. The findings suggest that neuropsychological examination can provide useful and potentially discriminating information in pedophilia and should be considered an important supplement in clinical assessments of the disorder.

Personality and cognitive functioning among hospitalized sexual offending Roman Catholic priests

“…Thus, hospitalized sex offending clergy were found to score higher on only the overcontrolled hostility measure relative to hospitalized non-abusing clergy. The lack of significant differences among the groups while ex~_ mining these defensive and cognitive measures is surprising given previous research on sexual offending laypersons (Cassens et al, 1988;Duckworth & Barley, 1988;Duthie & McIvor, 1990;Hucker et al, 1986;Kalichman et al, 1992;Lang, 1993;Langevin et al, 1989) and was contrary to our hypotheses. However, these findings may suggest that some results obtained on sexual offending laypersons may not clearly apply to sexual offending clergy.…”

The Neuropsychology and Neurology of Sexual Deviance: A Review and Pilot Study

“…However, it seems that neither the height nor the head size of the participants were considered as covariates, which might induce an important artifact. Hucker et al (1986) also reported that left and/or right dilatation of the temporal or anterior horns was more frequently observed in 29 pedophiles than 14 nonsexual nonviolent offenders, although two subsequent investigations from the same laboratory failed to confirm these results (Langevin et al 1988b(Langevin et al , 1989a. Still, approximately 25% of the child abusers were judged as suffering from temporal lobe anomalies, usually a dilatation of the temporal horn, reflecting the importance of including a comparison group of non offenders in this type of investigation.…”

“…Considering the Age of the Victim(s) A growing number of neuropsychological and neuroimaging reports suggest that pedophiles, as a group, are more cognitively impaired than rapists of adults (Blanchard et al 1999;Cantor et al 2005;Graber et al 1982;Hucker et al 1986;Langevin et al 1988b;Martin 1999;Scott et al 1984). Certain precursory data indicate lower regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in pedophiles than in rapists of adults (see the next section; Graber et al 1982), which might affect more specifically the anterior part of the brain (Hendricks et al 1988).…”

Magnetic Resonance Techniques in Study of Sexual Stimuli Processing in Paedophilia

“…Other group is of the Temporal-Limbic Theories that implicate in the regulation of sexual behaviour to temporal lobe structures or give a role to these structures in behavioural disinhibition. The theorists of this point of view cite the associations between temporal lobe epilepsy and paraphilia and between temporal lobe lesions and the hypersexuality exhibited in Kluver-Bucy Syndrome (Hucker et al, 1986;Lilly et al, 1983;Mendez et al, 2000). c. These two previous approximations have joined in the Dual Dysfunction Theories, in which is defends that the paedophilic men suffer from dysfunction both in temporal regions (causing sexual urges) and in frontal regions (causing behavioural disinhibition) .…”