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Imagine sitting down with your family at a restaurant. Conversations at your table overlap with those of patrons seated nearby. Utensils clink on plates. Waitstaff weave between tables. Music plays overhead.

Many people might find the bustle of such a scene a bit annoying. However, for veterans with chronic mild traumatic brain injury, or TBI, also referred to as concussion, busy environments like this are frequently intolerable. What should be an enjoyable social event soon escalates to internal mayhem. They find their attention stretched beyond capacity. Tension and irritability grow. The impulse to flee or fight becomes paramount.

Veterans who have chronic mild TBI and have described these experiences to me often ask: "Why does this keep happening?"

I am a clinical neuroscientist providing treatment and rehabilitation at an institute in Colorado for military service members and veterans who have experienced concussions. Some of the most common challenges I see in my patients are irritability and cognitive problems. With this knowledge, my scientific efforts focus on discovering the causes of these persistent symptoms.

My colleagues' and my research is revealing that these challenges may largely be due to the injured brain being flooded by sensory information that overwhelms its processing capacity. This may explain why even a mild brain injury can interfere with military service members' transition to civilian life.

Mild TBIs are among the most common injuries that military service members experience and are considered the signature injury of recent wars and ongoing conflicts.

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