Concussion Litigation: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Brain Injuries

Defense counsel has a reliable playbook for the “mild” concussion: no loss of consciousness, a clean CT and conventional MRI, and an argument that the plaintiff walked away fine. Standard imaging misses the diffuse axonal damage that leaves clients with lasting cognitive, behavioral, and sleep impairment — and for years the evidence to prove it was inadmissible.

That has changed. Diffusion tensor imaging, quantitative EEG, and functional MRI now carry the evidentiary validity that landmark New York rulings established, so causation in a traumatic brain injury case turns on whether counsel can read the imaging, retain the right experts, and translate biomechanical force into a jury-ready narrative. Any plaintiff lawyer treating a head-injury claim as minor because the scan came back normal is leaving the recovery on the table.

Michael Flomenhaft and Bruce Stern cover imaging pitfalls, the assessments that prove damages, expert collaboration, defense countertactics, and trial themes that teach a jury the science. You leave able to prove an injury conventional imaging called normal — and defeat the minimization that suppresses recovery.