Assessing paedophilia based on the haemodynamic brain response to face images

Abstract

Objectives: Objective assessment of sexual preferences may be of relevance in the treatment and prognosis of child sexual offenders. Previous research has indicated that this can be achieved by pattern classification of brain responses to sexual child and adult images. Our recent research showed that human face processing is tuned to sexual age preferences. This observation prompted us to test whether paedophilia can be inferred based on the haemodynamic brain responses to adult and child faces. Methods: Twenty-four men sexually attracted to prepubescent boys or girls (paedophiles) and 32 men sexually attracted to men or women (teleiophiles) were exposed to images of child and adult, male and female faces during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session. Results: A cross-validated, automatic pattern classification algorithm of brain responses to facial stimuli yielded four misclassified participants (three false positives), corresponding to a specificity of 91% and a sensitivity of 95%. Conclusions: These results indicate that the functional response to facial stimuli can be reliably used for fMRI-based classification of paedophilia, bypassing the problem of showing child sexual stimuli to paedophiles.

Key words:

• paedophilia
• fMRI
• pattern classification
• child sexual offending
• paraphilia

Acknowledgments

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in the MRI unit sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. A Federal Ministry of Education and Research structural grant to NeuroImageNord (grant 01GO0511) sponsored H.S.’s research. A Federal Ministry of Education and Research grant to NeMUP-Nord (grant 01KR1205D) sponsored JP’s research.

Statement of interest

HRS has received honoraria as speaker from Lundbeck A/S, Valby, Denmark, Biogen Idec, Denmark A/S, Genzyme, Denmark and MerckSerono, Denmark, honoraria as editor from Elsevier Publishers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Springer Publishing, Stuttgart, Germany, travel support from MagVenture, Denmark, and grant support from Biogen Idec, Denmark A/S.