OTTAWA -- Pedophilia may be the result of a person's brain not properly functioning due to faulty connections, according to a report released Wednesday by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
"It's the most succinct proof that pedophilia is in the brain," said Dr. James Cantor, a CAMH psychologist and the study's lead scientist. "For a very long time, people have thought that being a pedophile was the result of being the victim of a pedophile during childhood," or being physically abused.
The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, challenges the commonly held belief that pedophilia is brought on by childhood trauma or abuse.
Its finding is the strongest evidence yet that pedophilia is instead the result of a problem in brain development, the CAMH said.
However, the study's conclusions suggest much more research needs to be performed to learn how the brain governs sexual interests.
Such information could potentially yield strategies for preventing the development of pedophilia, the CAMH said.
Currently, phallometric testing is performed to determine whether a person may be a pedophile.
"It's the most obvious test in the world," Cantor said.
A blood-pressure cuff is placed on the patient's penis as he is shown pictures of adults and children and response of the penis is measured.
The CAMH study used MRIs and a sophisticated computer analysis technique to compare a group of pedophiles with a group of non-sexual criminals. The pedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter" which is responsible for wiring different parts of the brain together.
A total of 127 men participated in the study; approximately equal numbers of pedophiles and non-sexual offenders.
-- CanWest News Service
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