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Empathy is defined as the capacity to resonate with others' emotions and can be subdivided into affective and cognitive components. Few studies have focused on the role of perspective-taking within this ability. Utilizing the novel Bochumer Affective and Cognitive Empathy Task (BACET), the present study aims to determine the characteristics of specific empathy components, as well as the impact of offender vs. victim perspective-taking. A total of 21 male participants (mean age = 30.6) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while watching 60 videos showing two protagonists in neutral (n = 30) or violent interactions (n = 30) thereby adopting the perspective of the (later) offender or victim. Our data show that videos showing emotional (violent) content, compared to those with neutral content, were rated more emotionally negative and induced higher affective empathic involvement, particularly when adopting the victim's perspective compared to the offender's point of view. The correct assignment of people's appropriate emotion (cognitive empathy) was found to be more accurate and faster in the emotional condition relative to the neutral one. However, no significant differences in cognitive empathy performance were observed when comparing victim vs offender conditions. On a neural level, affective empathy processing, during emotional compared to neutral videos, was related to brain areas generally involved in social information processing, particularly in occipital, parietal, insular, and frontal regions. Cognitive aspects of empathy, relative to factual reasoning questions, were located in inferior occipital areas, fusiform gyrus, temporal pole, and frontal cortex. Neural differences were found depending on the perspective, i.e., empathizing with the victim, compared to the offender, during affective empathy activated parts of the right temporal lobe, whereas empathy towards the role of the offender revealed stronger activation in the right lingual gyrus. During cognitive empathy, empathy toward the victim, relative to the offender, enhanced activity of the right supramarginal and left precentral gyri. The opposite contrast did not show any significant differences. We conclude that the BACET can be a useful tool for further studying behavioral and neurobiological underpinnings of affective and cognitive empathy, especially in forensic populations since response patterns point to a significant impact of the observer's perspective., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All authors stated no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

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.

Background: Child sexual abuse and neglect have been related to an increased risk for the development of a wide range of behavioral, psychological, and sexual problems and increased rates of suicidal behavior. Contrary to the large amount of research focusing on the negative mental health consequences of child sexual abuse, very little is known about the characteristics of child sexual offenders and the neuronal underpinnings contributing to child sexual offending., Methods and Sample: This study investigates differences in resting state functional connectivity (rs-FC) between non-pedophilic child sexual offenders (N = 20; CSO-P) and matched healthy controls (N = 20; HC) using a seed-based approach. The focus of this investigation of rs-FC in CSO-P was put on prefrontal and limbic regions highly relevant for emotional and behavioral processing., Results: Results revealed a significant reduction of rs-FC between the right centromedial amygdala and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in child sexual offenders compared to controls., Conclusion & Recommendations: Given that, in the healthy brain, there is a strong top-down inhibitory control of prefrontal over limbic structures, these results suggest that diminished rs-FC between the amygdala and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and may foster sexual deviance and sexual offending. A profound understanding of these concepts should contribute to a better understanding of the occurrence of child sexual offending, as well as further development of more differentiated and effective interventions., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Contrary to public perception, child sex offending (CSO) and paedophilia are not the same. Only half of all cases of CSO are motivated by paedophilic preference, and a paedophilic preference does not necessarily lead to CSO. However, studies that investigated clinical factors accompanying and contributing to paedophilia so far mainly relied on paedophiles with a history of CSO. The aim of this study was to distinguish between factors associated with sexual preference (paedophile versus non-paedophile) and offender status (with versus without CSO). Accordingly, a 2 (sexual preference) × 2 (offender status) factorial design was used for a comprehensive clinical assessment of paedophiles with and without a history of CSO (n = 83, n = 79 respectively), child sex offenders without paedophilia (n = 32) and healthy controls (n = 148). Results indicated that psychiatric comorbidities, sexual dysfunctions and adverse childhood experiences were more common among paedophiles and child sex offenders than controls. Offenders and non-offenders differed in age, intelligence, educational level and experience of childhood sexual abuse, whereas paedophiles and non-paedophiles mainly differed in sexual characteristics (e.g., additional paraphilias, onset and current level of sexual activity). Regression analyses were more powerful in segregating offender status than sexual preference (mean classification accuracy: 76% versus 68%). In differentiating between offence- and preference-related factors this study improves clinical understanding of both phenomena and may be used to develop scientifically grounded CSO prevention and treatment programmes. It also highlights that some deviations are not traceable to just one of these two factors, thus raising the issue of the mechanism underlying both phenomena., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Neurobehavioral models of pedophilia and child sexual offending suggest a pattern of temporal and in particular prefrontal disturbances leading to inappropriate behavioral control and subsequently an increased propensity to sexually offend against children. However, clear empirical evidence for such mechanisms is still missing. Using a go/nogo paradigm in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) we compared behavioral performance and neural response patterns among three groups of men matched for age and IQ: pedophiles with (N = 40) and without (N = 37) a history of hands-on sexual offences against children as well as healthy non-offending controls (N = 40). As compared to offending pedophiles, non-offending pedophiles exhibited superior inhibitory control as reflected by significantly lower rate of commission errors. Group-by-condition interaction analysis also revealed inhibition-related activation in the left posterior cingulate and the left superior frontal cortex that distinguished between offending and non-offending pedophiles, while no significant differences were found between pedophiles and healthy controls. Both areas showing distinct activation pattern among pedophiles play a critical role in linking neural networks that relate to effective cognitive functioning. Data therefore suggest that heightened inhibition-related recruitment of these areas as well as decreased amount of commission errors is related to better inhibitory control in pedophiles who successfully avoid committing hands-on sexual offences against children. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1092-1104, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., (© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)