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pedophilia, meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), resting state, functional connectivity, neuroimaging
Abstract:
Despite its 0.5-1% lifetime prevalence in men and its general societal
relevance, neuroimaging investigations in pedophilia are scarce.
Preliminary findings indicate abnormal brain structure and function.
However, no study has yet linked structural alterations in pedophiles to
both connectional and functional properties of the aberrant hotspots.
The relationship between morphological alterations and brain function in
pedophilia as well as their contribution to its psychopathology thus
remain unclear. First, we assessed bimodal connectivity of structurally
altered candidate regions using meta-analytic connectivity modeling
(MACM) and resting-state correlations employing openly accessible data.
We compared the ensuing connectivity maps to the activation likelihood
estimation (ALE) maps of a recent quantitative meta-analysis of brain
activity during processing of sexual stimuli. Second, we functionally
characterized the structurally altered regions employing meta-data of a
large-scale neuroimaging database. Candidate regions were functionally
connected to key areas for processing of sexual stimuli. Moreover, we
found that the functional role of structurally altered brain regions in
pedophilia relates to nonsexual emotional as well as neurocognitive and
executive functions, previously reported to be impaired in pedophiles.
Our results suggest that structural brain alterations affect neural
networks for sexual processing by way of disrupted functional
connectivity, which may entail abnormal sexual arousal patterns. The
findings moreover indicate that structural alterations account for
common affective and neurocognitive impairments in pedophilia. The
present multimodal integration of brain structure and function analyses
links sexual and nonsexual psychopathology in pedophilia. Hum Brain Mapp
36:2374-2386, 2015. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
