UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast
As the Catholic Church, college football, and now the Boy Scouts reel from sex-abuse scandals, new studies suggest the urge to prey on children may come from how a brain is wired.
New research suggests that pedophiles can be identified before the mental illness turns into a crime, potentially keeping many children out of harm’s way. The analysis comes at a crucial moment, amid a wave of pedophilia cases dominating headlines, from Jerry Sandusky’s sentencing to allegations of sexual abuse within the Boy Scouts and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Identifying pedophilia through MRIs and IQ studies may seem like quack science, but many experts say it is a mental illness and, just like clinical depression or bipolar disorder, can be treated—and maybe one day cured.
At least five studies conducted in the past two years have dealt with various abnormalities detected in pedophiles’ brains. Research has varied, from discerning irregularities in the frontal lobe to observing brain activity as pedophiles viewed images of naked children.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.