Brain & Nervous System Head Trauma Coup Contrecoup Brain Injuries By Jennifer Whitlock, RN, MSN, FN Jennifer Whitlock, RN, MSN, FN LinkedIn Jennifer Whitlock, RN, MSN, FNP-C, is a board-certified family nurse practitioner. She has experience in primary care and hospital medicine. Learn about our editorial process Updated on February 08, 2022 Medically reviewed by Smita Patel, MD Medically reviewed by Smita Patel, MD LinkedIn Twitter Smita Patel, MD is triple board-certified in neurology, sleep medicine, and integrative medicine. Learn about our Medical Expert Board Print A coup countercoup (pronounced coo contra coo) brain injury is an injury that occurs both at the site of trauma and the opposite side of the brain. A "coup" injury is the initial site of impact. For example, if you were in a car accident and struck your head on the steering wheel, you might have a "coup" brain injury near the location of the forehead. Katarzyna Bialasiewicz / Getty Images A contrecoup injury happens at the opposite side of the site of injury, so if you struck your forehead, the brain injury would be at the back of the brain. This happens because the brain is the consistency of firm pudding, and does move within the skull. The initial impact on the forehead causes the first injury, but the movement of the brain within the skull causes the second impact against the back of the skull. Imagine shaking ice cubes in a glass. If you shake the glass hard enough, you can make the ice cubes hit both sides of the glass with one sharp movement of your hand. The glass impacts the first side of the glass hard enough to bounce and hit the opposite side of the glass. The same is true of the brain during a traumatic injury, the brain is the ice cubes, the skull is the glass. Together, these injuries are called a coup-contrecoup injury, indicating that both injuries are present. There must be impact to cause either the coup or contrecoup injuries. In the absence of impact (if only an acceleration, deceleration, or rotational force), no contrecoup injury is seen. Pronunciation Coo con-truh coo Also Known As Coup, contrecoup, traumatic brain injury, Common Misspellings Coo contracoo, contracoup, coo injury, coop injury, contracoop, contracoo, contrecoo, conracoo brain injury, Examples The patient suffered a coup-contrecoup injury as a result of hitting her head on the steering wheel during the crash. 2 Sources Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Galgano M, Toshkezi G, Qiu X, Russell T, Chin L, Zhao LR. Traumatic Brain Injury: Current Treatment Strategies and Future Endeavors. Cell Transplant. 2017;26(7):1118-1130. doi:10.1177/0963689717714102 Pearce CW, Young PG. On the pressure response in the brain due to short duration blunt impacts. PLoS ONE. 2014;9(12):e114292. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114292 By Jennifer Whitlock, RN, MSN, FN Jennifer Whitlock, RN, MSN, FNP-C, is a board-certified family nurse practitioner. She has experience in primary care and hospital medicine. See Our Editorial Process Meet Our Medical Expert Board Share Feedback Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! What is your feedback? Other Helpful Report an Error Submit