The study, named STOP-D, is a collaboration between Oxford University Hospitals and Kings College London.
Patients will receive either the light anti-depressant sertraline or a placebo for a full year.
The study’s aim is to track the potential impacts of sertraline on depression and life quality.
It will recruit patients from nine of England’s top trauma centres, representing a wide range of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.
Dr Vanessa Raymont, co-chief investigator on the study from the University of Oxford’s Psychiatry department said: “Given that the risk of developing depression for those patients with a traumatic brain injury is so great, this study is a crucial step in supporting those patients to receive the best possible outcome for their long-term recovery and wellbeing.
“The risk of post-traumatic depression emerging so soon after a traumatic brain injury suggests that initiation of an anti-depressant within a few weeks of the traumatic brain injury could significantly reduce the incidence of post-traumatic depression.
“Our findings will inform whether – and how – to integrate the screening and management for depression in traumatic brain injury patients within major trauma centres nationally.”
Up to half of people who suffer a traumatic brain injury develop some form of depression within 10 years of their injury.