Patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) across severity levels show impairments in consent capacity when making medical decisions. Similarly, determining whether to participate in medical research requires these capacities. How does TBI affect the research consent process, more specifically, appreciation? Though patients show deficits in medical decision making, what ability do participants with TBI possess in the form of research consent ability? In comparing two patients with traumatic brain injury to 10 healthy adults, separated into two groups (1:5 TBI to healthy patients) by age and level of education, researchers rated (0-2) responses to the Iowa Consent Appreciation Tool (ICAT). Patients showed impairments in appreciation; when reflecting the impact of research on themselves, TBI patients demonstrated beliefs that researchers planned to place them in groups or give them treatments with the most potential benefit to their condition. However, this patently false belief suggests impairments in these patients’ ability to consent. These findings indicate the necessity for further research. Due to the small sampling in this study, future projects should focus on larger groups of TBI patients and project findings across multiple comparison groups to assess the degree of impairment.