What Do Auto Accidents, PTSD, and TBI Have in Common?

Contrary to popular belief, the hippocampus is not a place where hippopotami go for higher learning. It is actually a seahorse-shaped structure deep within our brains that has to do with memory and emotions and is implicated in PTSD, TBI, fibromyalgia, depression and many other psychological conditions. Trauma has been shown to atrophy the hippocampi and various therapies have been shown to rehabilitate it.

A curious legal decision from the Michigan Appeals Court, Overweg v. Thomas, contained a psychologically erroneous ruling that PTSD did not reach Michigan’s threshold regarding serious impairment of a body function. Overweg involved a 2008 tragic auto accident in which a woman viewed her husband’s death. In subsequent litigation, she claimed injuries including PTSD. In order to qualify as a threshold injury in Michigan auto law in order to collect for non-economic or third party damages, the injury must result in “an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects the person’s general ability to lead his or her life.”

From treating auto accident patients for many years it has been my observation that PTSD is a common result of serious auto accidents. Other frequent conditions include TBIs, fibromyalgia, and major depression. All of these conditions seriously impact the ability to lead one’s life. Modern brain research has demonstrated that actual brain structures show changes in patients with these conditions. The hippocampus has been shown to have a reduce volume in PTSD and TBIs, and to be dysregulated in cases of fibromyalgia. So indeed, there is objective evidence of injury to the brain in these conditions. On a positive note, the effects on the hippocampus and other structures have been found to be reversible under specific conditions including therapy, medications and exercise.

Overweg highlights the court’s inability at times to exercise common sense when considering the impact of psychological injuries. That trauma physically alters brain structures, i.e., damages the brain, has been supported in recent years by rigorous neuroscientific advances. For victims of auto accidents involving major trauma, such nonsensical legal decisions as Overweg leaves victims further victimized by a legal system entrusted to protect them.