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Heterosexual Male Perpetrators of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Preliminary Neuropsychiatric Model

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Abstract

This paper presents data from a series of prelimary neuropsychiatric studies, including neuropsychological, personality, sexual history, plethysmographic and neuroimaging investigations, on a sample of 22 male, heterosexual, nonexclusive pedophiles and 24 demographically similar healthy controls. A psychobiological model of pedophilia is proposed, positing that early childhood sexual abuse leads to neurodevelopmental abnormalities in the temporal regions mediating sexual arousal and erotic discrimination and the frontal regions mediating the cognitive aspects of sexual desire and behavioral inhibition. In this way, pedophiles develop deviant pedophilic arousal. Subsequently, if there is comorbid personality pathology, specifically sociopathy and cognitive distortions, there will be failure to inhibit pedophilic behavior.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, New York

    Lisa J. Cohen, Konstantin Nikiforov, Carrie Weaver, Enid Gertmanian King & Igor Galynker

  2. Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York

    Sniezyna Gans

  3. New York, New York

    Olga Poznansky (Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services)

  4. New School for Social Research, New York, New York

    Pamela McGeoch

  5. CAP Behavioral Associates, Brooklyn, New York

    Ken Cullen

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  1. Lisa J. Cohen
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Cohen, L.J., Nikiforov, K., Gans, S. et al. Heterosexual Male Perpetrators of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Preliminary Neuropsychiatric Model. Psychiatr Q 73, 313–336 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020416101092

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