title: Immediate processing of erotic stimuli in paedophilia and controls: a case control study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Most neuroimaging studies investigating sexual arousal in paedophilia used erotic pictures together with a blocked fMRI design and long stimulus presentation time. While this approach allows the detection of sexual arousal, it does not enable the assessment of the immediate processing of erotically salient stimuli. Our study aimed to identify neuronal networks related to the immediate processing of erotic stimuli in heterosexual male paedophiles and healthy age-matched controls.
  
  
  METHODS
  We presented erotic pictures of prepubescent children and adults in an event related fMRI-design to eight paedophilic subjects and age-matched controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Erotic pictures of females elicited more activation in the right temporal lobe, the right parietal lobe and both occipital lobes and erotic pictures of children activated the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in both groups. An interaction of sex, age and group was present in the right anteriolateral oribitofrontal cortex.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our event related study design confirmed that erotic pictures activate some of the brain regions already known to be involved in the processing of erotic pictures when these are presented in blocks. In addition, it revealed that erotic pictures of prepubescent children activate brain regions critical for choosing response strategies in both groups, and that erotically salient stimuli selectively activate a brain region in paedophilic subjects that had previously been attributed to reward and punishment, and that had been shown to be implicated in the suppression of erotic response and deception.
authors.affiliation: Department of General and Social Psychiatry, Psychiatric University Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland. benedikt.habermeyer@puk.zh.ch
authors.forename: Benedikt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Habermeyer
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.forename: Nadja
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Händel
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lemoine
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Klarhöfer
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mager
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dittmann
authors.forename: Erich
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Seifritz
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Graf
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D004882:Erotica; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010378:Pedophilia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation