Gray matter anomalies in pedophiles with and without a history of child sexual offending

Abstract

Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder that is inter-related with but distinct from child sexual offending (CSO). Neural alterations reportedly contribute to both pedophilia and CSO, but until now, no study has distinguished the brain structural anomalies associated with pedophilia from those specifically associated with CSO in pedophilic men. Using high-resolution T1-weighted brain images and voxel-based morphometry, we analyzed the gray matter (GM) volume of the following 219 men recruited at four acquisition sites in Germany: 58 pedophiles with a history of CSO, 60 pedophiles without any history of CSO and 101 non-pedophilic, non-offending controls to control for the effects of age, education level, verbal IQ, sexual orientation and the acquisition site. Although there were no differences in the relative GM volume of the brain specifically associated with pedophilia, statistical parametric maps revealed a highly significant and CSO-related pattern of above vs below the ‘normal’ GM volume in the right temporal pole, with non-offending pedophiles exhibiting larger volumes than offending pedophiles. Moreover, regression analysis revealed that the lower GM volume of the dorsomedial prefrontal or anterior cingulate cortex was associated with a higher risk of re-offending in pedophilic child molesters. We believe our data provide the first evidence that CSO in pedophilia rather than pedophilia alone is associated with GM anomalies and thus shed new light on the results of previous studies on this topic. These results indicate the need for new neurobehavioral theories on pedophilia and CSO and may be potentially useful for treatment or prevention approaches that aim to reduce the risk of (re)offending in pedophilia.

Are There Any Biomarkers for Pedophilia and Sexual Child Abuse? A Review

“…Interestingly, the risk of re-offending [assessed with the SSPI-2, Screening Scale of Pedophilic Interest 2 nd version, (66)] was associated with lower local gray matter volume in the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex. This finding might be related to research results on deficient inhibitory control in offending pedophiles (see below) (64). In a large sample of 283 individuals, Lett et al could further demonstrate with moderate effect sizes that as compared to non-offending pedophiles (n = 77) and healthy controls (n = 133), pedophiles with child sexual offenses (n = 73) showed lower IQ-performance, reduced cortical thickness in the right motor cortex, reduced cortical surface area comprising bilateral frontal, temporal, cingulate, and insular regions, and reduced white matter fractal anisotropy particularly in the corpus callosum (65).…”

“…Recent reviews and meta-analyses investigating differences between individuals sexually oriented toward children and individuals sexually oriented toward adults revealed that their brain structures are very similar in nature (17,62,63). As indicated by two recent studies, aberrant neuroanatomy might rather be associated with child sexual abuse than with pedophilia (64,65). Applying voxel based morphometry (VBM) in 219 individuals, Schiffer et al failed to find group differences in the relative gray matter volume specifically associated with pedophilia (64).…”

“…As mentioned in Structural and Functional Imaging, altered brain structures might rather be associated with child sexual offending than with pedophilia (64,65). Nevertheless, structural brain alterations are well known for several psychiatric diseases.…”

Pedophilic sex offenders are characterised by reduced GABA concentration in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex

“…Thus, a differentiated approach must be taken into consideration of these results as they are exclusively related to pedophilic sex offenders. Abnormalities in the anterior cingulate cortex were previously linked to higher risk of re-offending in pedophilic child molesters ( Schiffer et al, 2017 ). Therefore, we speculate that dACC GABA deficit can only be found in pedophilic patients with a history of child sexual offending.…”

Decoding Pedophilia: Increased Anterior Insula Response to Infant Animal Pictures

“…However, previous findings showing some kind of mal-functioning mostly involved pedophiles that already committed child sex offending. By carefully comparing pedophiles with and without a history of child sex offenses recent studies revealed that mal-functioning is mostly restricted to those that committed child sex offenses ( Kargel et al, 2016 ; Massau et al, 2017b ; Schiffer et al, 2017 ). Accordingly, the neurobiological underpinnings of pedophilia remain unknown.…”