MEG reveals preference specific increases of sexual-image-evoked responses in paedophilic sexual offenders and healthy controls

OBJECTIVES: Paedophilic disorder is characterised by sexual attraction towards children. Classification of a counterpart as sexually attractive likely occurs rapidly, and involves both conscious and unconscious attentional and cognitive processes. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is an imaging method especially well-suited to examine visual and attentional processes triggered by sexual images within the range of milliseconds.

METHODS: We investigated brain responses to sexual images depicting adults (frequent) and children (infrequent stimulus) in seventeen paedophilic patients with a history of child sexual offending (P + CSO) and twenty healthy controls (HC) during a passive visual oddball paradigm. Event-related fields (ERF) were measured to extract the magnetic visual mismatch negativity (vMMNm), and how it relates to the processing of different classes of sexual stimuli.

RESULTS: P + CSO exhibited significantly longer vMMNm latencies (100-180 ms post-stimulus) than HC. Moreover, P + CSO showed widespread increased amplitudes in response to child images starting from P3a and P3b components and lasting up to 400 ms post-stimulus presentation localised in frontal and temporal brain regions.

CONCLUSIONS: This study uncovers the first MEG differences in automatic change detection between P + CSO and HC during the presentation of subliminal sexual images of adults and children, contributing towards a better understanding of the neurobiological processes of P + CSO.