Sexual preference for prepubescent children is associated with enhanced processing of child faces in juveniles

Lara Speer,Jakob Florack,Klaus M Beier,Till Amelung,Daniel Senkowski,Pierre Pantazidis,Julian Keil,Miriam Schuler,James K Moran

doi:10.1007/s00787-020-01684-4

Abstract

Child sexual abuse offences (CSOs) represent a severe ethical and socioeconomic burden for society. Juveniles with a sexual preference for prepubescent children (PP) commit a large percentage of CSOs, but have been widely neglected in neuroscience research. Aberrant neural responses to face stimuli have been observed in men with pedophilic interest. Thus far, it is unknown whether such aberrations exist already in PP. A passive face-viewing paradigm, including the presentation of child and adult faces, was deployed and high-density electroencephalography data were recorded. The study group comprised 25 PP and the control group involved 22 juveniles with age-adequate sexual preference. Attractiveness ratings and evoked brain responses were obtained for the face stimuli. An aberrant pattern of attractiveness ratings for child vs. adult faces was found in the PP group. Moreover, elevated occipital P1 amplitudes were observed for adult vs. child faces in both groups. At longer latency (340–426 ms), a stronger negative deflection to child vs. adult faces, which was source localized in higher visual, parietal and frontal regions, was specifically observed in the PP group. Our study provides evidence for enhanced neural processing of child face stimuli in PP, which might reflect elevated attention capture of face stimuli depicting members from the sexually preferred age group. This study expands our understanding of the neural foundations underlying sexual interest in prepubescent children and provides a promising path for the uncovering of objective biomarkers of sexual responsiveness to childlike body schemes in juveniles.

Highlights

In addition to physical injuries, child sexual abuse offences (CSOs) often lead to the development of mental disorders [1] and are associated with an increased likelihood of subsequent criminal behavior, e.g. becoming a child sexual offender [2, 3]
We examined the processing of child and adult faces in a group of juveniles with a sexual preference for prepubescent children (PP group) and a control group, comprising juveniles with age-adequate sexual preference
Later event-related potentials (ERPs) in the PP group were larger for child faces vs. adult faces, while no such difference was found in the control group

Summary

Introduction

In addition to physical injuries, child sexual abuse offences (CSOs) often lead to the development of mental disorders [1] and are associated with an increased likelihood of subsequent criminal behavior, e.g. becoming a child sexual offender [2, 3]. CSOs are committed by adults and by children and juveniles. In Germany, children and juveniles constituted about 30% of all reported CSOs [4]. A major risk factor for committing CSOs is the sexual preference for prepubescent children [5]. About 20–50% of adult child sexual offenders report to have a pedophilic sexual preference [6,7,8], which often manifests during adolescence and is presumably a relatively stable personality trait [9,10,11]. Juveniles and adults with sexual preference for childlike body schemes are comparably exposed to a higher risk of committing

Results

Discussion

Conclusion