Are brain injuries from car accidents causing depression years later?

Our car accident lawyers say the answer appears to be yes.

Scientists who have been following families with a history of depression have found structural differences in family members’ brains, specifically, a significant thinning of the right cortex, the brain’s outermost surface.

The thinning may be a trait or a marker of vulnerability to depression.  The scientists’ brain imaging study found the thinning in descendants of depressed parents and grandparents, whether or not the individuals themselves had ever suffered a depressive episode or an anxiety disorder.

While people may assume that a familial trait is genetic, that is not necessarily the case.  Upon seeing this, we, as car accident attorneys, just had to wonder if a physical thinning of the cortex could possibly in turn cause depression.  In other words, what if the cortex of a patient was damaged from a traumatic brain injury in a car accident?  Could it possibly cause depression?

Further evidence supporting this possibility involves the fact that the cerebral cortex is the region of the brain centrally involved in reasoning, planning and mood. Thus, it would make sense that thinning of the cortex may affect an individual’s ability to pay attention to and interpret social or emotional cues, causing depression and brain trauma due to a car accident.

If it is possible to get depression from a traumatic brain injury in an auto accident, then there could possibly be an additional part to the settlement for a traumatic brain injury or pain and suffering for contracted depression.  That is why it is important to us as car accident attorneys to find out if an extension of this study suggests that depression could be caused by post-birth physical injuries caused by car accidents.

Please contact us for a free consultation with an experienced car accident attorney — we speak both English and Spanish — at (800) 655-6585.  Click here and you may also submit your case for a Free Review.   No fee if no recovery.