Handedness and Outcome Variability in Cognitive Recovery After Mild TBI

The project investigates whether handedness—used as a behavioral proxy for cerebral lateralization—is associated with variability in long-term cognitive recovery following mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). We analyze data from 457 adults in the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems (TBIMS) national registry. Cognitive status at 12 and 24 months post-injury is quantified using multivariate anomaly scores (Mahalanobis distance from group-specific normative prototypes) across several neuropsychological domains. Our aim is to test whether handedness relates to the variability of 12-month cognitive change, beyond potential differences in mean performance levels. The study explores whether patterns consistent with differential functional organization across handedness groups may be reflected in the dispersion of recovery trajectories. This may have implications for understanding variability in post-injury cognitive outcomes and for theoretical accounts of compensation, redundancy, and distributed processing in brain function after TBI.