Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Blast overpressure, mounted and dismounted IED exposure, combat and training head trauma, and repetitive low-level blast from breaching, artillery and heavy weapons as the DIRECT cause of traumatic brain injury in service members — the deployment-era epidemiology establishing the in-service injury event, the imaging and neuropathology evidence that blast produces an objectively distinct brain injury, and the longitudinal evidence that symptoms and disability persist for years after separation, which is the basis on which residuals-of-TBI claims are most often denied.

38 CFR diagnostic code 8045

Peer-reviewed evidence (13)

The verified studies behind a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury claim — each links to its real PubMed or DOI record. These are sources our nexus drafts can draw from; none are invented.

Controlling law

The CFR sections and cases the theories relevant to this condition rest on — the legal standard raters evaluate against, never a prediction about any claim.

Direct (§ 3.303)

Regulation

38 C.F.R. § 3.303
Direct service connection — a current disability linked to service. (Continuity of symptomatology under § 3.303(b) is limited by case law to the § 3.309(a) chronic diseases — Walker.)

Case law

Shedden v. Principi, 381 F.3d 1163 (Fed. Cir. 2004)
The three-element test: current disability, in-service event, and a nexus between them.
Holton v. Shinseki, 557 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2009)
Federal Circuit restatement of the same three direct-service-connection elements.
Caluza v. Brown, 7 Vet. App. 498 (1995)
The evidentiary framework a rater weighs each element against.
Walker v. Shinseki, 708 F.3d 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2013)
Continuity of symptomatology (§ 3.303(b)) is available ONLY for a chronic disease listed in § 3.309(a); any other condition must use the medical-nexus pathway.
Davidson v. Shinseki, 581 F.3d 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2009)
A categorical 'a medical opinion is always required for nexus' is legal error — competent lay evidence can suffice.
Jandreau v. Nicholson, 492 F.3d 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2007); Layno v. Brown, 6 Vet. App. 465 (1994)
A veteran is competent to report symptoms they personally observe (Layno), and lay evidence can even establish a simple diagnosis in the right case (Jandreau).
McLendon v. Nicholson, 20 Vet. App. 79 (2006)
A LOW threshold — evidence that merely indicates a nexus MAY exist obligates VA to provide a C&P exam.
38 U.S.C. § 5107(b); Gilbert v. Derwinski, 1 Vet. App. 49 (1990)
When the evidence is in relative equipoise, the tie goes to the veteran — the preponderance must be AGAINST the claim to deny it.

Related guides & tools

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Educational information about the evidentiary standard — not legal or medical advice, and never a prediction about any claim.