Introduction:

Post-traumatic stress disorder affects the mental health of pediatric patients; it is considered very common in these patients. Scientific studies supported by magnetic resonance imaging have established a close relationship between post-traumatic stress and structural changes in the brain. A bibliographic review was carried out in the period from April to May 2021, in the resources available in MEDLINE, SciELO, Pubmed and Elsevier. Of the total of consultations, 25 references were cited.

Objective:

To describe the radiological signs in the neuroimaging of pediatric patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Development:

Neuroimaging studies in children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder have focused on abnormal structures and the functionality of some individual brain regions; these involve the brain regions associated with pathophysiology, they are: the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; the orbitofrontal cortex; insula; lentiform nucleus; amygdala; hippocampus and parahippocampus; the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex; the precuneus; cuneus; the fusiform and lingual gyrus and the white matter tracts that connect these brain regions.

Conclusions:

The radiological signs in the neuroimaging of pediatric patients with post-traumatic stress disorder are: reduction of the volumes of the hippocampus; brain and intracranial volume and amygdala volume, as well as a decrease in the total area of ​​the corpus callosum. In addition, it is observed that the pituitary volume and the volumes of cerebral gray matter were lower in patients with post-traumatic stress.

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