In a phase III clinical trial, to be led by Dr David Wright, associate professor of emergency medicine at Atlanta’s Emory University, scientists will test natural progesterone - the sex hormone used in the earliest contraceptive pills – on patients with severe head injuries.

According to an announcement made at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the trial, which will involve 1,000 patients in 17 US trauma centers, will commence in March.

With earlier studied having revealed that progesterone not only supports the normal development of neurons in the brain, but also has a notable ‘shielding’ effect on the damaged tissues of the brain, scientists are conducting the trial to corroborate their belief that the hormone can potentially save the lives of brain-injury patients, as well as reduce damage to their brains.

During the trial, for which the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has specially allowed the scientists to administer the drug without patients’ consent, the team will give the patients with blunt trauma head injuries a concoction of natural progesterone.

With the trial underlying the potential of seeing progesterone evolve as the first drug treatment for severe traumatic brain injury, Dr Wright said: “Traumatic brain injury is a complex condition - there's swelling, and neuronal death and damage occurring all at the same time. The beauty of progesterone is that it seems to work on all of those things.”