Neuroscience

[Der_Neugierige]

Why there isn't much research in Neuroscience when it comes to pedophilia or transsexuality?

 

Neuroscientist should really do more investigations of real postmprtem brains. I give a shit on these mri or fmri studies. We have to do following:

 

1. Microscopic analysis of those different part of the brains.

2. Epigenomic associations studies

3. Transcriptome analysis

4. Proteome analysis

5. Metablome analysis

[CharonY]

Half of these are pretty useless post-mortem and unleashing methods onto subjects with not good idea of how to do analyses is pretty much worthless. In the end you end up chasing spurious associations. That being said, there have been numerous brain imaging analyses of transsexual people. But MRI studies are also prone to false-positives. I am no expert in this field but from what I understand the studies are somewhat inconclusive but point to small distinct neuroanatomical pattern. But with the issues of neuroimaging, it is not clear whether these finding will survive larger sample sizes (which is the major limit of the studies).

[Der_Neugierige]

Sorry if a man says he has sexual attraction towards children and he has no story of a bad childhood or other psychiatric disorder, then there has to be something neurobiological wrong. Do you agree?

Half of these are pretty useless post-mortem and unleashing methods onto subjects with not good idea of how to do analyses is pretty much worthless. In the end you end up chasing spurious associations. That being said, there have been numerous brain imaging analyses of transsexual people. But MRI studies are also prone to false-positives. I am no expert in this field but from what I understand the studies are somewhat inconclusive but point to small distinct neuroanatomical pattern. But with the issues of neuroimaging, it is not clear whether these finding will survive larger sample sizes (which is the major limit of the studies).

Edited October 27, 2015 by Der_Neugierige

[CharonY]

I certainly do not agree to sweeping statements, especially in areas with a lot of unknowns and especially outside of my area of expertise.

[Marmul]

Sorry if a man says he has sexual attraction towards children and he has no story of a bad childhood or other psychiatric disorder, then there has to be something neurobiological wrong. Do you agree?

I think its more of biochemical issue. I don't think post-mortem analysis will result in any unique findings. Fair disclaimer here, I have no in-depth knowledge on dissection, but it is my understanding that the tissues will not be changed drastically as a result of biochemical malfunction. However, there was a case in early 2000s where a man had acquired an egg-sized brain tumor in the right orbitofrontal region and suddenly began exhibiting characteristics of pedophillia. Once the tumor was removed, his urges went away and later on returned when the tumor grew back. I haven't found any articles discussing the hormonal changes that his tumor may have caused. But then again, ANY kind of sexual deviance and sociopathic behaviors have been linked to issues in the frontal lobe. I guess it's all dependent on the individual.

 

Biological disorders shouldn't affect one's morality. They can make morals harder to attain, but at the end of the day, people are going to do what they want. The man with the tumor was also experiencing difficulties with other tasks, he lost a substantial amount of brain matter. He was essentially becoming mentally incapacitated, therefore he was truly incapable of understanding his own actions.