Women at increased risk for breast cancer because of the genetic BRCA mutations are more likely to think a prophylactic mastectomy is the best way to reduce their risk for the disease, compared to other women who are at high risk, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The study, published in the most recent issue of Cancer, also finds that the emotional worry was a strong factor leading women – both BRCA mutation carriers and others at high risk for the disease – to opt for the surgery.

It’s estimated that .1 to .2 percent of the general population carry either the BRCA 1 or 2 mutation, both of which are associated with an increased risk of breast and/or ovarian cancer. For those with the BRCA1 mutation, their lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is 47-66 percent, with some estimates even higher; those with BRCA2 have a lifetime risk of 40-57 percent.

Women are referred to genetic counseling because of a personal diagnosis of breast cancer at a very young age, or a strong family history of the breast and/or ovarian, explained Jennifer Litton, M.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Breast Medical Oncology.

“Women who are even suspected to have a BRCA mutation are highly motivated and need to make important decisions regarding their treatment options, even if they don’t have cancer,” said Litton the study’s senior author. “With the study, we wanted to determine the reasons why women make different choices in either screening – including breast-self exams, mammograms, or MRIs – or prophylactic measures, such as medications like Tamoxifen or surgeries.”

In conducting the study, the researchers sent surveys to 540 women who received genetic counseling and were screened for the BRCA mutations at M. D. Anderson between 1997 and 2005. Of those surveys, 312 (58 percent) were returned: 217 (70 percent) had breast cancer and 86 (28 percent) tested positive for the BRCA1 or 2 mutation.

In the surveys, patients were asked questions regarding their fear of developing the disease, as well as their feelings on: the screening techniques mammograms and breast-self exams; the drug Tamoxifen and its known side effects, and prophylactic surgeries.

Regarding mammograms and self breast exams, the study found little difference between the BRCA positive and negative cohorts. Neither group felt that mammograms were too difficult to get because of discomfort, nor did either report being too embarrassed to perform breast-self exams. In addition, there was no statistical difference in the two groups’ feelings toward Tamoxifen: 37.9 percent of the BRCA positive patients and 46.5 percent of the BRCA negative patients felt that the concerns associated with the drug outweighed its benefits for reducing risk of developing breast cancer.

In evaluating the response to questions regarding prophylactic mastectomies, the researchers began to see significant differences between the two groups, and “worry” as a recurring concern.

When comparing BRCA positive to BRCA negative cohorts: 70 percent versus 40 percent respectively felt that prophylactic mastectomies were the most effective way to reduce their risk of developing the disease; 36.1 percent versus 40.5 percent respectively felt it was too drastic of a measure to prevent breast cancer; 23.9 percent versus 12.5 percent respectively had difficulty in deciding between surgery and screening.

Regarding their degree of worry, 64.7 percent of BRCA positive patients thought a prophylactic mastectomy was the only way to reduce their fear of the disease, compared to 34.4 percent of BRCA negative patients.

When combining both groups, after excluding women with bilateral breast cancer, 81 percent who thought surgery was their best way to reduce their risk, and 84 percent of those who felt that it was their best way to reduce their worry ultimately underwent the procedure. In contrast, 19.1 percent of those who did not feel that the surgery was the best way to reduce their risk and 15.8 percent of women who did not think it was their only way to decrease their worry opted to have a prophylactic mastectomy.

In her clinical experience, Litton has seen many high-risk women, particularly those who test positive for the BRCA 1 or 2 mutation, that initially opt for intensive screening, but after several mammograms, MRIs and biopsies, eventually decide to have a prophylactic mastectomy.

“For clinicians, this study shows that when we’re counseling women about prophylactic mastectomies, we need to not just talk about the surgery, but understand their lifestyles,” said Litton. “When the worry of developing cancer is interfering with a patient’s day-to-day activities, then their quality of life is impacted. These women with a high risk of developing breast cancer may find that despite the surgery and subsequent recuperation, a prophylactic mastectomy improves their quality of life.”

Women at highest risk need to ask themselves some very important, personal questions that only they have the answers to, said Litton.

“When making such a personal decision, these women at highest risk need to ask themselves about how they feel about their breast as far as their body image, sexuality, relationship with and support of their partner, as well as their concern for breast cancer. If that worry comes in the way of their day-to-day activities, it should be taken into consideration as part of the patient’s decision-making process.”

Litton cautioned that the results should not be generalized for the majority of the breast cancer population. Additionally, high risk women, of course, should also be counseled on the risk associated with surgery.

As a follow up to this study, Litton plans to conduct a study with high-risk women of child-bearing age pre- and post-genetic counseling to determine their degree worry, their guilt of possibly passing on the gene to their offspring and thoughts on pre-gestational diagnosis.

Notes:

The study was funded in part by the Nellie B. Connally Breast Cancer Research Fund and a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

In addition to Litton, other authors on the all-M. D. Anderson study include: Gabriel Hortobagyi, M.D., Banu Arun, M.D., Ana Gonzalez-Angulo, M.D., Kaylene Ready, all of the Department of Breast Medical Oncology; Karen Lu, M.D., Diane Bodurka, M.D., Charlotte Sun, DRPH, Shannon Westin, M.D., all of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology; Funda Meric-Bernstam, M.D., Department of Surgery; and Susan Peterson, Ph.D., Department of Behavioral Science.

About M. D. Anderson

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ranks as one of the world’s most respected centers focused on cancer patient care, research, education and prevention. M. D. Anderson is one of only 40 comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. For four of the past six years, including 2008, M. D. Anderson has ranked No. 1 in cancer care in “America’s Best Hospitals,” a survey published annually in U.S. News & World Report.

Women undertaking a ten week program of 75 minute Restorative Yoga (RY) classes gained positive differences in aspects of mental health such as depression, positive emotions, and spirituality (feeling calm/peaceful) compared to the control group. The study, published in a special issue of Psycho-Oncology focusing on physical activity, shows the women had a 50% reduction in depression and a 12% increase in feelings of peace and meaning after the yoga sessions.

RY is a gentle type of yoga which is similar to other types of yoga classes, moving the spine in all directions but in a more passive and gentle way. Props such as cushions, bolsters, and blankets provide complete physical support for total relaxation with minimal physical effort, and so people in differing levels of health can practice yoga more easily.

44 women took part in the study, with 22 undertaking the yoga classes and 22 in the waitlist control group. All of the women had breast cancer; 34% were actively undergoing cancer treatment while the majority had already completed treatment. All participants completed a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the ten week program, asking them to evaluate their quality of life through various measures. The results clearly showed that the women who had been given the RY classes experienced a wide range of benefits compared to the control group (who were later all invited to attend identical RY classes).

“Evidence from systematic reviews of randomized trials is quite strong that mind-body therapies improve mood, quality of life, and treatment-related symptoms in people with cancer. Yoga is one mind-body therapy that is widely available and involves relatively reasonable costs,” said lead researcher Suzanne Danhauer, Ph.D., based at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “Given the high levels of stress and distress that many women with breast cancer experience, the opportunity to experience feeling more peaceful and calm in the midst of breast cancer is a significant benefit.”

The study found that women who started with higher negative emotions and lower emotional well-being derived greater benefit from the gentle yoga intervention compared to the control group. Women in the gentle yoga group also demonstrated a significant within-group improvement in fatigue, while no such change was noted for the control group.

“This was a pilot study to identify the worthiness and feasibility of conducting a larger randomized control trial on restorative yoga and women with breast cancer,” added Danhauer. “Our results are very promising and will allow us to embark on a much larger scale study.”

It’s a question that confronts parents and teachers everywhere- what is the best method of teaching kids new skills? Is it better for children to learn gradually, starting with easy examples and slowly progressing to more challenging problems? Or is it more effective to just dive-in head first with difficult problems, and then move on to easier examples? Although conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to learn a difficult skill is to progress from easier problems to more difficult ones, research examining this issue has resulted in mixed outcomes.

University of California, Santa Barbara psychologists Brain J. Spiering and F. Gregory Ashby wanted to pinpoint the best strategies for learning new information. In their study, a group of volunteers were taught a new task in which they had to categorize items. The volunteers were trained to complete the task by one of three methods – starting with easy problems, starting with harder problems then moving on to easier examples or being shown examples in random order.

The results, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, showed that the effects of the different training methods depended on the type of categories that the participants were learning. When the categories could be easily described (i.e. was the line horizontal or vertical?), all three of the training procedures were equally effective. However, when the categories could not be described easily, starting with the harder problems then moving to easier ones produced the best results. The volunteers in the easy-to-hard group were able to come up with simple rules and category descriptions which worked for the easy problems, but were not applicable to more complicated problems. As a result, these participants ended up doing poorly on the task because they were unable to think abstractly to solve the problem. On the other hand, the participants who began with harder problems very quickly stopped trying to come up ways to describe the categories and thought about the problems in a more abstract way; this strategy helped them to perform well throughout the task.

These findings have important implications for teachers and educators and suggest that materials should be presented to students in a specific order, depending on what is being taught.

Notes:

Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. For a copy of the article “Initial Training With Difficult Items Facilitates Information Integration, but Not Rule-Based Category Learning” and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Barbara Isanski

Most children are able to imagine their future selves as astronauts, politicians or even superheroes; however, many older adults find it difficult to recollect past events, let alone generate new ones. A new Harvard University study reveals that the ability of older adults to form imaginary scenarios is linked to their ability to recall detailed memories.

According to the study, episodic memory, which represents our personal memories of past experiences, “allows individuals to project themselves both backward and forward in subjective time.”

Therefore, in order to create imagined future events, the individual must be able to remember the details of previously experienced ones extract various details and put them together to create an imaginary event, a process known as the constructive-episodic-simulation.

Harvard psychologists Donna Rose Addis, Alana Wong and Daniel Schacter supported the hypothesis using an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview in which young and older participants responded to randomly selected cue words with past and future scenarios.

When compared with young adults, the researchers found that the older adults displayed a significant reduction in the use of internal episodic details to describe both past memories and imagined future events.

The results of the study, which appear in the January 2008 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, not only reveal that there is a link between age-related memory deficits and future planning in older adults, but raise questions concerning the involvement of other types of memory, as well.

The involvement of psychologists in interrogations is a subject of great interest among practicing psychologists, researchers, policy advocates and interrogators. There are greatly varying opinions about what role psychologists should play in interrogation settings. For example, at last summer’s meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco, representatives of the APA Council of Representatives voted against banning participation of psychologists, and in favor of adopting an alternative resolution.

The new issue of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy presents the scope of views represented by experts from multiple areas within psychology and addresses the differing perspectives about interrogation and psychological roles and responsibilities. Although the articles in this volume were written before the APA meeting, they represent a full range of perspectives, and provide background information on the continuing debates among psychologists.

Topics discussed in the interrogations papers include:

-The situational ethics involved in dealing with classified information, national security and client privileges.

-An outline of the significant actions and positions taken by the Board and Council of the American Psychological Association.

-A review of the available evidence concerning connections between psychology and torture.

-The ethical and scientific considerations involved in evaluating the proper role of psychologists in national security interrogations. -The balance of ethics and research findings.

Other papers in this volume examine other important issues of policy and practice including:

-Social science evidence and the recent K-12 school desegregation court rulings.

-Social science evidence on issues of immigration.

-Psychology and the environment.

-Community perceptions of sex offenders.

“The articles address important and timely social issues, and are focused squarely on the relations of research and theory with practice and public policy,” says Dr. Geoffrey M. Maruyama, Editor of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy.

Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP) is an electronic journal of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). It is published in print every December. The journal is an outlet for timely and innovative psychological and related social science scholarship with implications for social action and policy. ASAP provides a forum for publishing new work as well as discussion on alternative approaches to a variety of important and current social problems. ASAP facilitates communication between social science researchers and practitioners and policy makers, as well as with the public as a whole. For more information, please visit http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/loi/asap.

Flag waving is a metaphor for stirring up the public towards adopting a more nationalistic, generally hard-line stance. Indeed, “rally ’round the flag” is a venerable expression of this phenomenon.

It comes as some surprise, then, that studies conducted by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have shown that exposing people to a subliminal image of the national flag had just the opposite fact — moderating their political attitudes.

Further, the researchers say that their studies indicate that, in general, subliminal messages — that is, messages that are processed by our brains but never reach our consciousness – do indeed influence explicit attitudes and real-life political behavior, a significant extension to what we know about the effects of non-conscious processes.

The studies, led by cognitive scientist Dr. Ran Hassin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Psychology Department, show that the subliminal presentation of a national symbol affects not only political attitudes, but also voting intentions and actual voting in general elections.

In an article in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Hassin reported on a set of experiments that examined the effects of the subliminal presentation of the national flag. The experiments involved over 300 participants who were recruited on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University.

In the first experiment, the Israeli participants, divided into two groups at random, were asked about their attitudes towards core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prior to answering these questions, half of them were exposed to subliminal images of the Israeli flag projected on a monitor and half of them were not. The results show that the former group tended to shift to the political center.

In other words, a brief presentation of the Israeli flag – so brief, that people didn’t even notice it – was sufficient to make people adopt more moderate views. Another experiment, that was conducted in the weeks that preceded the Israeli pullout from Gaza, replicated these results and reflected centrist views in relation to the withdrawal and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.

The third experiment was held just prior to Israel’s last general elections. The results were identical. The subliminal presentation of Israel’s flag drew right wing, as well as left wing, Israelis towards the political center. Crucially, participants who were subliminally exposed to the flag said they intended to vote for more central parties than those who had not been exposed to the subliminal message. The researchers then called the participants after the elections, and found out that people who were exposed to the flag indeed voted in a more moderate way.

Why this exposure to a national symbol should have what appears to be a surprising moderating effect remains yet to be studied and analyzed.

“I think these results are interesting for two reasons,” says Hassin. “First, they provide sound empirical evidence for the non-conscious ways in which national ideologies subtly affect our thoughts and behaviors. We are now extending this research to examine what other ideologies can do so and in what ways this is expressed. ”

“Secondly,” he continued, “these results significantly extend the empirical knowledge regarding the nature and influences of unconscious processes. We are now investigating the mental mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon, and I am confident that this journey will yield new insights to our understanding of the cognitive unconscious – and hence, of consciousness itself.”

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

http://www.huji.ac.il

Corporate funding – particularly from pharmaceutical companies – has the potential to create both individual and institutional conflicts of interest and could pose a threat to the integrity of psychological research and practice, according to a special task force of the American Psychological Association.

APA’s Presidential Task Force on External Funding reviewed research, media reports and other sources to conclude that strong policies, education and continuing education are necessary to protect the integrity of the science and practice of psychology. The eight-member task force has recommended that APA set clear limits on its dealings with pharmaceutical companies and other corporate entities in specific ways, including disclosing relationships between these companies and any research published in APA journals.

Initiated in 2002 by then-APA President Philip Zimbardo, PhD, the task force was charged with reviewing APA policies and practices regarding the acceptance of funding or other material support from private corporations. The group chose to focus on pharmaceutical funding as a case example because its effects on the science and profession of medicine are well-documented “and provide a telling example of the distortions and unintended consequences that can occur when academic centers, scientists and practitioners become overly dependent on for-profit industries,” according to the group’s report.

The 23 unanimous recommendations of the task force are published in the December issue of American Psychologist, the official journal of the American Psychological Association.

“We anticipate that corporate funding will become more of an issue for psychologists in the future for several reasons,” several task force members wrote in the journal. “The increasing influence of large corporations in daily life, the likelihood of increasing numbers of prescribing psychologists, the aging of the population of the United States and the potential increase in markets for pharmaceutical products aimed at behavioral and mental health problems are trends that are likely to bring issues of corporate funding closer to the work of psychologists.”

Task force co-chair Wendy S. Pachter, PhD, JD, lead author of the article, said she hopes the group’s work will stimulate broad discussion of the issues and strengthen the culture of independence and integrity within the sciences and related professions, which could otherwise become vulnerable in the face of corporate challenges and inducements.

“APA and other scientific and professional associations can provide leadership in maintaining scientific and professional integrity in at least two ways,” she said. “First, by example in implementing thoughtful policies with respect to industry funding, and second, through education and continuing education in the basic values of the scientific professions and in how to identify and respond to the challenges posed by corporate funding.”

While noting that corporate funding is currently a tiny portion of the overall APA budget, APA Chief Executive Officer Norman Anderson, PhD, welcomed the report, saying it “raises important issues for the association and for everyone engaged in scientific research, not just psychologists.”

“We all must guard against compromising the integrity of scientific research,” he said. “Vigilance and full disclosure are essential to preserving the independence and credibility of psychological science, practice and education.”

Among the task force’s other recommendations:

- All raw data for any study published in one of APA’s journals should be made available to any qualified scientist for independent review.

- Any financial conflicts of interest must be disclosed for any psychology-sponsored presentation, publication, electronic mailing list, interaction with a research human subject or policy-making public meeting.

- Journals should carry disclaimers about the accuracy of claims in advertisements.

- All initiated clinical trials should be registered in a public registry before trial implementation in order to qualify for publication in any APA journal. Furthermore, APA should consider starting its own clinical trial registry.

- APA members should be advised of potential biases inherent in accepting inducements that could affect the selection of texts, the use of particular tests and/or sponsorship of continuing education courses.

- APA seminars, lectures and continuing education courses presenting commercial products should discuss competing products.

- Continuing education seminar participants should be asked to evaluate the perceived commercial biases in presentations.

- Psychologists should be discouraged from accepting gifts and perquisites from pharmaceutical companies, even when such gifts are of modest value.

- External funds should never be a part of APA’s operating or core budget, including both direct and indirect costs.

Article: “Corporate Funding and Conflicts of Interest,” Wendy S. Pachter, PhD, JD, Washington, DC; Ronald E. Fox, PhD, Human Resources Consultants; Philip Zimbardo, PhD, Stanford University; David O. Antonuccio, PhD, University of Nevada School of Medicine; American Psychologist, Vol. 62, No. 9.

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists. APA’s membership includes more than 148,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.

American Psychological Association

Anyone who has bonded with a puppy madly sniffing with affection gets an idea of how scents, most not apparent to humans, are critical to a dog’s appreciation of her two-legged friends. Now new research from Northwestern University suggests that humans also pick up infinitesimal scents that affect whether or not we like somebody.

“We evaluate people every day and make judgments about who we like or don’t like,” said Wen Li, a post-doctoral fellow in the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “We may think our judgments are based only on various conscious bits of information, but our senses also may provide subliminal perceptual information that affects our behavior.”

“Subliminal Smells Can Guide Social Preferences” was published in the December issue of Psychological Science. Besides Li, the study’s co-investigators include Isabel Moallem, Loyola University; Ken Paller, professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern; and Jay Gottfried, assistant professor of neurology at Feinberg and senior author of the paper.

Minute amounts of odors elicited salient psychological and physiological changes that suggest that humans get much more information from barely perceptible scents than previously realized.

To test whether subliminal odors alter social preferences, participants were asked to sniff bottles with three different scents: lemon (good), sweat (bad) and ethereal (neutral). The scents ranged from levels that could be consciously smelled to those that were barely perceptible. Study participants were informed that an odor would be present in 75 percent of the trials.

Most participants were not aware of the barely perceptible odors. After sniffing from each of the bottles, they were shown a face with a neutral expression and asked to evaluate it using one of six different rankings, ranging from extremely likeable to extremely unlikeable.

People who were slightly better than average at figuring out whether the minimal smell was present didn’t seem to be biased by the subliminal scents.

“The study suggests that people conscious of the barely noticeable scents were able to discount that sensory information and just evaluate the faces,” Li said. “It only was when smell sneaked in without being noticed that judgments about likeability were biased.”

The conclusions fit with recent studies using visual stimuli that suggest that top-down control mechanisms in the brain can be exerted on unconscious processing even though individuals have no awareness of what is being controlled.

“When sensory input is insufficient to provoke a conscious olfactory experience, subliminal processing prevails and biases perception,” Paller said. “But as the awareness of a scent increases, greater executive control in the brain is engaged to counteract unconscious olfaction.”

The acute sensitivity of human olfaction tends to be underappreciated. “In general, people tend to be dismissive of human olfaction and discount the role that smell plays in our everyday life,” said Gottfried. “Our study offers direct evidence that human social behavior is under the influence of miniscule amounts of odor, at concentrations too low to be consciously perceived, indicating that the human sense of smell is much keener than commonly thought.”

The study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that subliminal sensory information — whether from scents, vision or hearing — affects perception. “We are beginning to understand more about how perception and memory function,” Paller said, “by taking into account various types of influences that operate without our explicit knowledge.”

Beverly Allit, 39, who had killed four child patients and injured nine and received 13 life sentences in 1993, has had her application for early release on grounds of mental illness turned down by a High Court in England. Allitt was known as “The Angel of Death”. According to Mr. Justice Stanley Burnton, she should serve the minimum 30 years, as ruled by the trial judge at Nottingham Crown Court in 1993.

Allitt had gone on a killing spree – in a period of some months she killed and maimed her child patients by injection them with insulin. During the trial it was alleged that Allitt suffered from Munchausen Syndrome (By Proxy) – a mental illness where the patient harms himself/herself or others in order to gain attention.

Burnton explained that the relatives of the victims also received a life sentence from which “there is no remission, no release on license”. He added that the impact of the offences does not require to be described and could not be exaggerated “young lives were cut short at their inception. The offences to the children took place in what should have been – and what their families must have believed to be – a place of safety.. ..the offender made it into a place of extreme danger. Each of the offences is an immense personal tragedy for the family concerned.”

What is Munchausen Syndrome?

Munchausen Syndrome, also known as Hospital Addiction Syndrome, is a psychiatric disorder, in the class of factitious disorders. The patient feigns disease or psychological trauma in order to gain sympathy and/or attention to themselves. The patient either provokes the symptoms or fakes them.

A person with Munchausen Syndrome will either embellish or create symptoms of illnesses in themselves or others (see last paragraph) – their aim is to attract attention, an investigation, treatment, or/and comfort and sympathy from health care professionals. There have been cases in which the affected person’s knowledge of medicine is such that they are able to produce symptoms that trigger numerous needless operations.

A person with Munchausen Syndrome is not a Hypochondriac. The Munchausen Syndrome affected person knows he/she is exaggerating or creating the symptoms, while the Hypochondriac really believes he/she is ill.

Munchausen Syndrome is when the patient harms himself/herself to gain attention or sympathy. Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy is when the patient harms another person to gain attention and/or sympathy.

Written by – Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

Pedophilia might be the result of faulty connections in the brain, according to new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The 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 the different parts of the brain together.

The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatry Research, challenges the commonly held belief that pedophilia is brought on by childhood trauma or abuse. This finding is the strongest evidence yet that pedophilia is instead the result of a problem in brain development.

Previous research from this team has strongly hinted that the key to understanding pedophilia might be in how the brain develops. Pedophiles have lower IQs, are three times more likely to be left-handed, and even tend to be physically shorter than non-pedophiles.

“There is nothing in this research that says pedophiles shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for their actions,” said Dr. James Cantor, CAMH Psychologist and lead scientist of the study, “Not being able to choose your sexual interests doesn’t mean you can’t choose what you do.”

This discovery suggests that much more research attention should be paid to how the brain governs sexual interests. Such information could potentially yield strategies for preventing the development of pedophilia.

A total of 127 men participated in the study; approximately equal numbers of pedophiles and non-sexual offenders.

The Kurt Freund Laboratory at CAMH was established in 1968 and remains one of the world’s foremost centers for the research and diagnosis of pedophilia and other sexual disorders.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is one of the leading addiction and mental health organizations in North America and Canada’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital. Integrating clinical care, scientific research, education, policy development and health promotion, CAMH transforms the lives of people impacted by mental health and addiction issues.

CAMH is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre, and is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.