Amygdala response may point to neural anomaly in males with pedophilia

The amygdala—a brain structure that plays a key role in emotion and arousal—may work very differently in male pedophiles than it does in men who aren’t sexually attracted to children, according to a new study from Germany.

Alexander Sartorius and colleagues investigated amygdala activity in 10 male pedophiles (all attracted to boys) and 10 heterosexual males who were not pedophiles. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants performed a task that involved identifying specific geometric shapes. The shapes were interspersed with non-targeted shapes and sexually non-explicit images of men, women, boys, or girls.

“While controls activated significantly less to pictures of children compared to adults,” the researchers say, “the activation profile was reversed in subjects with pedophilia, who exhibited significantly more activation to children than adults.” Based on these findings, the researchers offer “the provocative hypothesis that a normally present mechanism for reduced emotional arousal for children relative to adults is reversed in pedophilia, suggesting a neural substrate associated with deviant sexual preference in this condition.”