Tetris vs. PTSD

In an experiment, scientists had 40 adults watch a 12-minute film filled with graphic scenes of traffic accidents, surgeries and a drowning — material that often produces mild flashbacks even when viewed only in a movie. Half an hour after the film, half the participants were asked to sit quietly for 10 minutes and the other half were asked to play Tetris for 10 minutes. They were then tested to see whether they had any immediate flashbacks; they also kept a journal for the following week in which they recorded any involuntary revisualizing of the imagery.

The group that played Tetris fared far better — experiencing 42 percent fewer flashbacks over one week. "It was so simple, and it worked beautifully," says Emily Holmes, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford and an author of a paper published in January on the experiment. She calls Tetris a potential "cognitive vaccine" for P.T.S.D.

The scientists suspect the Tetris vaccine works because flashbacks are registered primarily as visual memories. By playing Tetris right after a trauma, the visual cortex becomes so busy that the brain doesn't encode the horrific visual imagery in the way that it otherwise might. (Tetris addicts report seeing the game's bricks falling in their mind when they try to sleep.) And Tetris is nonverbal, so it doesn't impinge upon other crucial work the brain does to help make sense of — and cope with — a traumatic episode. Holmes isn't yet recommending Tetris as a therapy. But if further tests confirm its value, the game could become a formal treatment: to help ease your mind after a trauma, try to manipulate gently falling bricks.

(Tetris was always (and is still) my favorite game - what does that say about me, Freud?)

[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/#technology-14]