Sexual sadism is a paraphilia that focuses on domination, humiliation, and infliction of pain on a victim to stimulate sexual arousal. Although extensively described in psychology and forensic sciences, less is known about whether the harmful acts committed by sexual sadists are accompanied by deficits in moral judgment. A limited amount of behavioral research suggests moral insensitivity in sexual sadists; however, the neural networks underlying moral judgment in sadists have not been studied. In this pilot study, 21 incarcerated male sexual offenders with (n = 11) and without (n = 10) sexual sadism were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed pictures that did or did not depict situations considered by most individuals to represent moral transgressions, and rated their degree of moral transgression severity. Results indicated primarily overlapping neural systems underlying moral judgment in sadists and non-sadists. However, non-sadists but not sadists showed a positive correlation between moral transgression severity ratings and activity in the anterior temporal cortex (ATC). This lack of ATC engagement in sadists might be a biomarker of altered moral judgment.

性虐待狂是一种偏爱症，侧重于支配、羞辱和对受害者施加痛苦以刺激性唤起。尽管在心理学和法医学中得到了广泛的描述，但人们对性虐待者的有害行为是否伴随着道德判断的缺陷知之甚少。有限数量的行为研究表明性虐待狂的道德不敏感；然而，尚未研究过虐待者道德判断背后的神经网络。在这项试点研究中，21 名被监禁的男性性犯罪者有 ( n  = 11) 和没有 ( n = 10) 使用功能性磁共振成像 (fMRI) 对性虐待狂进行扫描，同时他们查看描绘或未描绘大多数人认为代表道德违规的情况的图片，并评估他们的道德违规严重程度。结果表明，虐待狂和非虐待狂的道德判断主要是重叠的神经系统。然而，非虐待狂而非虐待狂在道德违规严重程度评级与前颞叶皮层 (ATC) 活动之间显示出正相关。虐待狂中缺乏 ATC 参与可能是道德判断改变的生物标志物。