MRI demonstrates brain disruption in children with PTSD

Researchers from West China Hospital of Sichuan University (Chengdu, China) have utilized diffusion-tensor MRI and graph theory to demonstrate that children with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience disruptions in the structure of the neural networks within their brains. The results of the study, recently published in Radiology, displayed that the structural connectome exhibited a shift towards regularization, which may provide a structural basis for functional alterations of pediatric PTSD that could be employed to assist in the development of treatments for the disorder. Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of PTSD as neurochemical and hormonal alterations associated with childhood...