This is a part of the podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Irritability, Anger, and Aggression after TBI. Dr. Dawn Neumann discusses irritability in those with brain injury vs. without injury. 

Irritability is different in people with traumatic brain injury than people without an injury in a lot of different ways. It's much more extreme and it basically can come out of the blue. It often seems exaggerated and disproportionate to what the circumstance might call for, and it just happens a whole lot more often. The reason irritability is more common and more extreme after a traumatic brain injury is a complicated question. There could be many reasons that a person with a brain injury has irritability and aggression. That's going to make it more frequent and more common. So for instance, the person with a brain injury has cognition problem, so they have trouble thinking they may have issues with pain or fatigue. All of those things are going to lean to irritability and aggression. Just the adjustment of the injury in itself and kind of learning kind of to deal with those changes after the injury can lead somebody to feel irritable and be aggressive. 

Visit https://msktc.org/tbi and get the answers you need from experts who conduct innovative and high-quality research, provide patient care, and work to improve the health and overall quality of life for people with traumatic brain injury. That’s https://msktc.org/tbi.