The association between slow cortical potentials preceding antisaccades and disturbances of consciousness in persons with paraphilic sexual behaviour

Abstract

Saccade characteristics and slow potentials in antisaccade tasks were studied in 37 people with disorders of sexual interest, depending on the disturbances of self-consciousness. The study found a decreased level of frontal cortex activation in subjects with disorders of self-consciousness; in subjects without disturbances of self-consciousness a high level of frontal cortex activation was observed. The findings demonstrate the important role of the frontal cortex in providing self-consciousness.

Keywords:

• Addiction
• self-consciousness
• antisaccade
• EEG potentials

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1 Self-consciousness is the awareness of someself as a person with an inherent worldview, interests, motives of behaviour (in the context of research—abnormal behaviour). Self-consciousness is the awareness of someself as a stable unit (awareness of one's own identity, including sexual identity). Disturbances of self-consciousness are found in different mental disorders. We see the disturbances of self-consciousness are considered from the standpoint of the phenomenology by Karl Jaspers.